Thousands of Southern Australians will have to wait longer to restore electricity to their homes after a mass outage saw the state cut off from the rest of the country’s grid.
The mass blackout began when the state was lashed by heavy thunderstorms, heavy rain and severe winds over the weekend with more than 420,000 lightning strikes and winds of up to 106km / h were recorded statewide on Saturday.
At least 163,000 customers have been disconnected after the storms, with considerable anticipation coming for more than 21,000 customers still without electricity across the state.
“It will take much longer to restore power” than the 2016 statewide blackout, SA Power Networks spokesman Paul Roberts told ABC radio on Monday morning.
“The statewide blackout was essentially reorganizing the supply in the grid and building us from the ground up to be able to generate the state, while it is actually about rebuilding the grid,” he said.
Most customers are expected to resume electricity by Tuesday evening, but Mr. Roberts warned that some “retarded” will remain without electricity until Wednesday, including customers in regional and metropolitan areas.
Restoration teams take care of the biggest outages affecting a large number of customers before dealing with minor blackouts.
More than 800 requests for assistance were answered by the State Emergency Services Sunday through Monday afternoon.
Originally published as Power Outage to Last “Much Longer” for Thousands of South Australians
