More than 100,000 homes and businesses in Victoria remain without power, more than 24 hours after severe storms destroyed transmission towers and shut down a power station.
Many traders, cafe owners and butchers were forced to throw away thousands of dollars’ worth of produce after they lost power to power their refrigerators on Wednesday.
It is one of the largest power outages in Victoria’s history and could It will take weeks to fully restore.
The most affected properties are in eastern and northeastern Victoria and outer eastern and northern Melbourne.
As of 10 p.m. Wednesday, 103,646 customers remained without power, of which nearly 2,500 were power-dependent customers, meaning they needed life-support equipment, such as a ventilator or kidney dialysis machine.
Bek Hamer and TJ Rainczuk, who run the White Wolf Café in Belgrave, in Melbourne’s east, said A current issue They have lost $7,000 worth of stock.
Bek Hamer and TJ Rainczuk (pictured), who run the White Wolf Cafe in Belgrave, in Melbourne’s east, told A Current Affair they have lost $7,000 worth of stock.
‘We have lost everything perishable. “So we milked eggs, ham, bacon, any of our meats, chicken, cream, Twisted Sister ice cream worth over $1.00, our Superkick shakes… we lost almost a huge amount of them too,” Ms. Hamer said .
The couple, who have only been running the cafe for just over a year, said they couldn’t even donate their food because it had spoiled due to the heat.
‘YO“It doesn’t suck that we’re losing money, but the fact that we’re just throwing food away, that really kills me,” Ms. Hamer added.
Butcher Stuart Hamilton, who works at nearby Bills of Belgrave, said he expected to lose around $20,000.
“It will take us weeks to get back to full production,” he said.
Separately, Luckee Kholi, owner of Mulgrave IGA in Melbourne’s southeast, said he had to offload $150,000 worth of shares.
‘It is a disaster. “I’ve been here for 20 years and I’ve never seen anything like this,” Kholi told the show.
While many cafes and shops simply closed, one pharmacist remained open and staff used flashlights on their phones and kept medicines in their refrigerator at home.
Luckee Kholi (pictured), owner of Mulgrave IGA in Melbourne’s south-east, had to offload shares worth $150,000
It is one of the largest power outages in Victoria’s history and could take weeks to fully resolve (pictured: store forced to close)
“Many people need urgent medication, that’s why we have to stay open,” said the pharmacy director.
Premier Jacinta Allan confirmed on Tuesday that a 50-year-old dairy farmer in South Gippsland had lost his life when he was struck by the roof of a shed that had fallen off during Tuesday’s monster storm.
Hundreds of power poles and lines were downed and six transmission towers near Anakie collapsed on Tuesday, knocking out all four units of the Loy Yang A power station.
More than half a million Victorians were without power at the worst of Tuesday’s bad weather.
Victorian Energy Minister Lily D’Ambrosio said Ausnet had been “the hardest hit”.
The bad weather downed power lines and knocked out power to more than 500,000 homes across the state, which could take weeks to fix (downed power lines pictured)
“25 percent of Ausnet’s network has been damaged, making it the worst event in its history,” D’Ambrosio tweeted Wednesday night.
‘Ausnet has more than 8,000 kilometers of lines to inspect and hopes to complete this work tonight.
“At that point, they will have a better understanding of how long it will take to restore power to each area.”
Loy Yang A, a coal-fired plant in the Latrobe Valley in the state’s east, generates about 30 per cent of Victoria’s power.
Station owner AGL confirmed that two units have returned to service as of Wednesday morning.