TasNetworks has warned that the remaining power restorations in northern and north-western Tasmania are likely to be the “slowest and most complex” yet.
Around 3,000 customers remain without power across more than 100 separate outages, the largest impacting around 126 customers in the Campbell Town and Lake Leake area.
TasNetworks Acting Operations Executive Tim Gowland said as crews gain access to previously dangerous or inaccessible areas, more damage is being uncovered, including previously unknown damage detected by drone inspections.
“We feel deeply for Tasmanians who’ve already gone several days and nights without power in their homes, businesses and farms,” he said.
“As strange as it may sound, getting these last few thousand customers restored is probably going to be at least as challenging and painstaking as the 150,000 we’ve restored already.”
“That’s because these are often complex outages affecting a small number of customers, but needing a lot of time and crew resources to fix.”
“Many are in isolated and hard-to-access areas.”
Gowland said that in any widespread outage recovery, the “bigger and simpler outages” get fixed quicker, while the smaller, complex and more isolated ones involving heavy vegetation take longer.
“The unfortunate reality is that some customers will be without power for many more days,” he said.
To accelerate recovery efforts, 22 interstate crew members from New South Wales have been brought in and 10 southern-Tasmanian-based field crews are travelling north to assist with remaining restorations.
“We’re throwing absolutely everything at this. We still have a lot of hard work ahead,” Gowland said.
“We appreciate our southern people leaving their homes and families for a few days to help support our people and customers up here.”
TasNetworks has described the impact of storm damage as “unprecedented in recent memory”.
Typical storm outages typically only reach a few dozen separate outages, compared to more than 200 for much of the current event.
