COCKY CUTS POWER ACROSS CITY
A BLACKOUT swept across large parts of Geelong yesterday when a cockatoo hit powerlines.
The unlucky bird got tangled in a powerline on Barrabool Rd, shutting down power to more than 8000 customers and bringing the city centre to a standstill.
The cockatoo did not survive the ordeal.
Shoppers were forced to evacuate both the Westfield and Market Square shopping centres as the lights went out just after 10am.
As traders hastily hauled down shutters, shoppers were ushered out of both shopping centres by worried staff.
The outage caused issues at some intersections, with about 20 sets of traffic lights failing, including in Ryrie St and La Trobe Tce.
Some Moorabool St businesses were not impacted.
The outage left thousands of homes and businesses without power across the Geelong region, including in Belmont, Highton, Wandana Heights, Geelong, Newtown, South Geelong and the city centre.
It took about 30 minutes to bring the power back up at some sites as traders and shoppers waited patiently outside shopping centres. As of 10.40am, about 1500 customers remained offline.
And more than 900 customers were still without power yesterday afternoon with Powercor working towards restoring electricity by 3pm.
Powercor spokeswoman Emma Tyner said the cockatoo strike “caused a safety device to activate as designed, shutting off power to properties”.
“We appreciate power outages are inconvenient nt and we thank customers ers for their understanding nding while our crews work to get power safely back on,” Ms Tyner said.