Mt Tambo power hub destroyed
De Brenni: ‘Entire rebuild’
Thousands of Mount Tamborine and Jimboomba residents will enter 2024 without power.
State Energy Minister Michael de Brenni said damage from the devastating Christmas storm to the area’s power grid was “so significant” the systems needed entirely rebuilt: “The advice is those areas aren’t able to have power restored. The damage is so significant we’ll have to rebuild the power network in those communities. Meantime, those communities will need alternative generation solutions.”
Mr de Brenni said state government and council were investigating interim power solutions with top priority to reconnect hospitals and aged car centres.
At Thursday morning, 63 per cent of affected Gold Coast properties had power restored. By Saturday, Energex expects 80 per cent of properties to have power back climbing to 90 by late New Year’s Eve.
Gold Coast Mayor Tom Tate said damage assessments were still underway: “The threshold is $2.1m before we can start claiming recompense from state government. We’ll be above that.”
More than 500 Energex field officers are on the ground across South East Queensland, with 146 SES and 108 Rural Fire Service members on deck Wednesday.
Police Commissioner Katrina Carroll confirmed 10 extra SES crews from NSW are expected to arrive and 10 crews expected to return from far north Queensland and Cyclone Jasper.
“There are a lot more jobs for the SES crews to get through over the next few days,” she said.
Personal disaster grants have been extended to 14 more suburbs including Mount Tamborine, Jimboomba and Tallai in the Gold Coast’s Hinterland.
More than 30,000 applications have been lodged since the funding was activated on Wednesday, with 8000 calls made to the community recovery hotline.
On Thursday, Federal Emergency Minister Senator Murray Watt said further grants were available for disaster-stricken residents to aid with electricity, water and gas reconnection.
“That can be up to $5000 per household. The best way for people to find out what they might be eligible for is to go on to the Queensland Government’s Disaster Assist website.”
Residents across the Gold Coast say they are considering sleeping on bathroom tiles as they head into a fourth day without power in a heatwave.
Almost 50,000 Queensland homes were still without power after the storm – which some are calling a tornado. More than half of the 130,000 houses which lost power on Christmas Day have now been restored.
Power was lost to 1500 homes in central Southport late in Thursday afternoon after a “fault in the network More than 30,000 Gold Coast homes remain without power at deadline.
An Energex spokesman said they had more than 400 staff working to fix the extensive damage to power lines and grids across Queensland.
“We know it’s been an awful time for thousands of households, and our teams have left nothing in the tank as they’ve cleared debris, made sites safe, restrung some of the 1000-plus downed powerlines, replaced power poles.”
The Energex spokesman said workers made progress on Wednesday safeguarding dozens of damaged sites, repairing and building many of the key high voltage power lines.
“Field staff have put in the hard yards today in heatwave conditions. They’ve also made good headway with restoration. In the 24 hours, power has been reinstated to 63,000 homes.”
The spokesman said power lines in badly-hit areas were “impossible” to get to: There are mountains of huge felled trees between our crews and the lines.
The spokesman said the crews worked through Wednesday night and into Thursday.
“Our crews – some personally affected by storm damage, and many whom abandoned holidays to help – will be working through the night,” they said.
“We face an uphill battle in some of the areas where access is still impossible.”