POWER was off over a wide area of Bass Coast from early in the morning on Monday of the Australia Day long weekend, to around 3.15pm in the afternoon but the exact cause of the outage has still not been identified.
A spokesperson for Ausnet said they suspected an early morning lightning strike, but as of 3.20pm on Monday they still didn’t know the exact location of the damage to the system.
“We’ve had a helicopter up there investigating and crews out patrolling but we’re yet to find the location of the damage.”
However, while the Sentinel-Times was speaking to the Ausnet media representative, power was being restored to most of those who had lost power for the best part of seven hours on one of the hottest days of the year.
“At this stage, there are still about 480 people without power but we would expect to have most of those restored soon,” she said.
The outage impacted parts of Newhaven, San Remo, Dalyston, Wonthaggi, Anderson, Surf Beach, Cape Woolamai, Churchill Island, Kilcunda (upwards of 4205 homes according to Ausnet).
Other areas impacted included Kongwak, West Creek, Glen Alvie, Lance Creek, Ryanston, Archies Creek, Woolamai, North Wonthaggi, St Clair, Wattle Bank, Outtrim, and Krowera.
Sentinel-Times’ contributors to Facebook said there were two enormous claps of thunder around 8.30am and the power went off immediately after that.
“Just after 8am in Cape Woolamai, just right after that massive lightning and thunder,” was on comment about when the power went off.
Another reported an Ausnet helicopter in the West Creek area during the early afternoon.
“The Ausnet helicopter is flying quite low over West Creek area and surrounds now.”
The helicopter conducted extensive surveillance around San Remo just before 3pm ahead of the power returning about 3.15pm.
Traders in San Remo report the outage having a “massive impact” on one of the busiest trading days of the year, with beach goers usually chilling out in their thousands at the two San Remo hotels and cafes on the final day of an Australia Day weekend.
