Nearly 200 north coast Essential Energy customers are still without power this morning and the electricity supplier admits it has only managed to reconnect 40 so far today.
Some 220 customers in areas around Goonengerry and Federal remained without power overnight following Sunday’s massive storm.
An Essential Energy spokesperson said the main issue facing crews was trees that had fallen over power lines.
‘We’ve had to bring in vegetation contractors to get access to some heavily treed areas,’ she said.
The spokesperson said recent redundancies at the network provider had no influence on the delays in getting power restored.
‘Our crews were on the ground all Sunday night. They worked for 16 hours, which is the safe allowable maximum, and we’ve now brought in extra crews from Coffs Harbour, Grafton and Tweed Heads,’ she said.
‘Our first priority is safety and then getting power restored as quickly as possible,’ she added.
The spokesperson said there were still 180 customers without power at 9am this morning ‘who we are hoping will be reconnected later today’.
A total of 9,800 customers were taken off the grid by Sunday evening’s storms, which wreaked havoc around the region and caused damage to Lismore Base Hospital.
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