Essential Energy have received a number of reports of the community approaching fallen powerlines and is reminding everyone in Northern NSW to stay at least eight metres away from fallen powerlines. Assume that these power lines are live and very dangerous as the impacts of ex-cyclone Alfred continues to cause damage to the electricity network.
If you see fallen powerlines or any trees on the network, please call 13 20 80 to report the location.
16,000 without electricity
As of 10.30am, just over 16,000 homes and businesses are without power across various communities from Tweed Heads south to Grafton with this number likely to change throughout the day.
Crews are working to cleanup, repair and restore wherever it is safe to do so, however, customers need to be prepared to be without power for several days. The biggest challenges to getting power back on will be rising flood waters and swollen creek beds, fallen vegetation and mud slides impacting access roads.
Additional crews from across the Essential Energy network are travelling into the area today to assist. Community hubs will be set up in the coming days to provide support to customers including access to charging for mobile devices and access to the internet.
A big focus for today is to work on the restoration of power at Mount Nardi is home to several transmission towers for FM radio, digital television, fixed wireless broadband and some mobile phone services.
Severe weather is continuing to hinder restoration efforts with plans to survey the network via helicopter unable to proceed for safety reasons until conditions improve.
For information about evacuation centres in your area, please visit the NSW SES website.
For up-to-date information on impacted locations and estimated restoration times (when known), visit our website outages page.
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