People power restores energy to North Queensland

Published Wednesday, 12 April, 2017 at 12:28 PM

JOINT STATEMENT

Premier and Minister for the Arts
The Honourable Annastacia Palaszczuk

Minister for Disability Services, Minister for Seniors and Minister Assisting the Premier on North Queensland
The Honourable Coralee O'Rourke

Minister for Main Roads, Road Safety and Ports and Minister for Energy, Biofuels and Water Supply
The Honourable Mark Bailey

Energy crews have restored power to all 65,000 customers affected by Tropical Cyclone Debbie in less than two weeks, Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said today.

The Premier said nine hundred Ergon Energy, Energex, Essential Energy crews and contractors worked tirelessly and at times in difficult conditions, to restore power from the network or generators to get customers and communities back on their feet as quickly as possible.

“This is a remarkable achievement given the damage caused to Ergon’s network in the wake of Tropical Cyclone Debbie,” Ms Palaszczuk said.

 “Community support for Ergon’s restoration crews has been significant and I can’t thank North Queenslanders enough.”

Minister for Energy Mark Bailey said Ergon’s outstanding response has also been one of the most hi-tech responses to a disaster event in Australia’s history.

“Ergon has built on learnings from previous disaster events and used technology to gather an unprecedented level of data, geospatial visualisation and aerial surveillance mapping for damage assessment to improve its response,” he said.

“Ground based damage assessment crews have been backed up by an army of technical support staff sitting at computers assisting with the entire end-to-end response from potential impacts, flood modelling, real-time damage assessments, restorations, data analytics and providing expert advice.”

“Real time data and pictures of the network damage area has enabled Ergon’s crews to respond and restore power to communities faster.”

Minister Assisting the Premier on North Queensland Coralee O’Rourke said the damage caused by Cyclone Debbie was severe.

“The cyclone damaged 650 power poles and brought down 800 powerlines. It also caused extensive damage to the network from the Burdekin south to Sarina and west to Collinsville and Moranbah cutting power to 65,000 customers mostly in the Mackay and The Whitsundays areas which bore the brunt of Debbie’s damaging winds,” she said.

“I congratulate everyone involved in the restoration effort, it’s been an impressive feat.”

Ergon will undertake an extensive safety inspection of its network to check for residual damage to ensure public safety. 

Media contact: Minister Bailey’s office – 0428 079 640