The damage from this storm was greater than anything we’d seen before. The weather front didn’t let up for two days, it took us time to get in and assess the damage before we could begin repairs.
We managed to restore power to almost 80% of impacted customers within the first 48hrs, but this was a major storm that caused significant damage and we worked around the clock to restore the power as quickly and safely as we possibly could.
It took some time to access the area and to fully understand the extent of the damage and the scale of the recovery and repair. Our field crews always work as safely and as quickly as possible and these conditions were particularly challenging. We requested back up from interstate crews to help us with the rebuilding efforts.
The repairs alone took some time, but there were also actions such as tree clearing that needed to be completed before we could get to the actual repair work.
We can't switch on power to a line until it is repaired all the way along. Before a line can be switched on, we need to be 100% sure that the entire line is repaired or else we risk the safety to homes, to the lineys working on restoring power, the potential of causing further damage to the network.
We know that didn’t help the people who suffered without power for such a long time – and we apologise again for the distress that this caused. Because of the extreme damage to the Dandenongs region, we implemented a dedicated Dandenongs rebuild plan and kept the community updated each step of the way.