Power being restored to Kalgoorlie-Boulder after outages ground the Goldfields city to a halt

Power is starting to return to Kalgoorlie-Boulder, an outback city about 600 kilometres east of Perth, after widespread outages hit the city’s essential services.

About 8,800 homes and businesses remained without power as of Friday morning, including 3,500 in Perth Hills, 700 in parts of the Goldfields and 2,000 in the Wheatbelt.

However residents who have been reconnected are asked to limit their power usage until the supply is stabilised.

The Department of Fire and Emergency Services (DFES) warned people should be prepared for power outages of up to seven days.

Premier Roger Cook praised the resilience of those who endured the power outages caused by the “freak weather event”.

“To give you an idea of the severity of these storms, these [transmission] towers … are well over 50 metres high. They crumpled like tin foil,” he said.

The Premier said authorities were confident power could be returned to all affected homes within the next two days.

Kalgoorlie residents lost power Wednesday evening, while some in the Wheatbelt have been cut off since Tuesday, when at the peak 34,000 people were off the grid.

Western Power spokesman Zane Christmas said one of Kalgoorlie’s key back-up generators that failed yesterday was now up and running but there could still be intermittent outages.

“It’s by no means a permanent fix,” he said. “And to be honest, it’s not ideal in terms of supplying the overall load.

“But from a technical perspective, while we work at restoring that damaged power line, it’s maybe the best that we can come up with right now.

“To help with power restoration efforts and maintain supply, we please ask customers to limit energy use if you have power, or once you are reconnected.”

With more than 700 staff on the ground doing repairs, he said it aimed to restore power to more customers today in Sawyers Valley, Glen Forrest, Mount Helena, Mundaring, Brookton, and Gidgegannup, among others.

At midday Friday Telstra said 28 mobile base stations remained off air, with five located in the Goldfields and 23 in the Wheatbelt.

Kalgoorlie-Boulder Mayor Glenn Wilson said the partial restoration came as a “great relief”. 

He said blackouts were still affecting parts of the city and communities elsewhere in the Goldfields.

What went wrong?

An intense storm that moved through the regions beginning on Tuesday was responsible for the ensuing blackout.

That storm, which hit with force during the middle of a heatwave, tore down trees and ripped roofs in a widespread area that even impacted eastern suburbs of Perth.

In a statement issued on Thursday evening, Western Power said the cause of the outage was damage to the network from a lightning strike. 

“The 220-kilovolt transmission line that supplies Kalgoorlie has sustained significant damage from the storm front that moved through the region,” a spokesperson said. 

As recently as November, Western Power said its alternative generation supply arrangement at the West Kalgoorlie Terminal with Synergy, via two gas turbine generators, “can be used as a backup power supply for unplanned outages”.

But in the wake of the storm, both became out of service due to technical issues.

While one is now back online, the company said full restoration would take “a number of days”.

Medical services impacted

Dr Michael Livingston said when the power first went off at his Narembeen practice he started seeing patients in the dark.

“I quickly realised this might not be working very well as both the patient and I had this sweat dripping off our faces,” he said.

But he said after losing phone and internet service he could not proceed.

“I was just like, this is very precarious,” he said. “Putting the most isolated communities at the greatest risk.”

He said all up the blackout would have cost him more than $20,000, partly because vaccines and medicines would have spoiled. 

On Thursday, Dr Kylie Sterry told ABC Regional Drive that her medical centre had closed.

“It’s impossible to run a medical practice in 40-degree heat,” she said.

“With no lights, no air conditioners and no computers.

“Unfortunately there’s a lot of patients who can’t see a doctor today.”

She advised people to stay in the shade as much as possible, wear light clothing and drink as much water as possible.

Kalgoorlie resident Esther Roadnight, 73, said going more than 24 hours without power, on a 41C day, was stressful.

“It’s not a good experience to go through,” she said. 

She said she was particularly worried about friends who relied on electric medical equipment and those who did not fare well in the heat.

“There’d be quite a number of them that would have been suffering quite badly,” she said.

WA Country Health Service said it saw 20 heat-related presentations at local hospitals on Thursday.

Who’s to blame?

The WA opposition has blamed the state government for the blackout, declaring it should have ensured there was adequate backup for the town. 

Opposition energy spokesman Steve Thomas said the government appeared to have done little to improve energy security in the Goldfields since 2022.

“The state government was aware two years ago in 2022, with the last round of blackouts, that there was a problem with the backup system,” he said. 

“Two years later, and two ministers later, we still haven’t got a solution.”

Mr Thomas said the government should have been able to use some of its budget surplus to ensure power supplied weren’t interrupted for so long.

“If this was happening in the middle of Perth you would have a completely different outcome,” he said.

Earlier, Energy Minister Reece Whitby said he had “incredible sympathy” for those affected by power outages across the state, which he said were triggered by a “pretty extraordinary weather event”.

“Can I assure everyone that’s impact that Western Power is doing absolutely everything they can,” he said.

“I know people are frustrated, I know it’s difficult and I know there are issues out there.”

SOURCE: ABCNEWS