Major power outages at Broken Hill in Far West NSW have forced the closure of state schools, with authorities warning it could be a fortnight before a stable flow of electricity is restored
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00:00To say that power has been unreliable here for the last couple of days would probably
00:06be an understatement.
00:08The power went out on Wednesday night last week after a storm came across the far west,
00:13and people had in Broken Hill their power restored by Wednesday morning, but others
00:17in areas like Wilcannia and Menindee didn't have theirs back until Friday.
00:21Since then, Transgrid had to do maintenance on the sole remaining generator that we had
00:27in town, and that went well as they said at the time, but since then, as of last night,
00:34or as 5pm last night, the generator tripped as they say, and they're still investigating
00:38why that issue came up, why that's happening.
00:42We're not expecting to get power back in Broken Hill or more broadly in the far west until
00:46later this afternoon, and so naturally people are really frustrated.
00:50We spoke with a local business owner, Abigail Hughes, a little bit about this, so we'll
00:54hear from her.
00:56The staff don't know when they're going to be able to come in and work, we've pretty
00:59much just put everything on hold for now.
01:00I know, look, the workers here on the ground, the central energy, a lot of those guys, you
01:04know, we see them every day, you know, they're working their hearts out to kind of get the
01:08power back on, but you know, this should never have happened in the first place.
01:15I don't really know what much more to say, it's so frustrating, it's ridiculous.
01:19So it was announced last night that the Storm Recovery Commonwealth State Fund will be granted
01:25for this area, and so essentially that's recognising that this was a significant weather
01:29event, a natural disaster of a kind, and so councils, with that funding, councils will
01:33be able to use the funding for clean-up and to restore damage to any public assets.
01:39It'll also provide essential power for homes, schools, hospitals and that sort of thing.
01:43Any essential power during that time, that funding will go towards that, but we don't
01:46know what the exact amount of funding being given is yet, so that's something that a lot
01:51of locals are still waiting to hear on.
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