‘We’re camping at home’: 9,000 Sydney residents endure cold showers and candlelit dinners as they remain without power SIX days after huge storm
- Storms battered homes in Sydney and the NSW Central Coast last Sunday
- People said repairs are taking too long which forced them to live by candlelight
- Ausgrid said 1000 contractors were working with the SES to restore power
- It said weakened trees were even falling on power lines that had been repaired
Cold showers, homework by candlelight and asking friends to help keep phones charged has become the frustrating norm for Sydney residents affected by near-week-long power outages.
More than 9000 homes and businesses have spent six nights without power since severe storms battered Sydney and the NSW Central Coast last Sunday.
West Pymble mother Anna So-Young Na has been showering her two young children at the local gym and eating out for most meals, given everything in her fridge has spoiled.
Storms battered homes in Sydney and the NSW Central Coast last Sunday leaving thousands of people without power six days later
Nearby, Hae Dong Choi has been keeping his three daughters’ phones charged with his car or with portable batteries his friends have kindly powered up.
‘I can’t make food,’ the father and private tutor told AAP.
‘I have spent a lot of money and it’s very inconvenient to have cold showers.’
Sewage was ‘running into the streets and into people’s backyards’ on Friday in Galston, where tanks in the pressured sewerage system rely on pumps.
‘On Thursday night, you could smell it in the street. We could even smell it from inside our house with the windows open,’ resident Clair Queenan told AAP.
‘The first indication of the power restored on Friday evening was the sound of everyone’s tank-overflow alarms going off.’
‘Depending on where everyone’s tanks are placed on their property, and then how much rain we receive – once the sewage seeps out, then it will wash and flow wherever it flows.’
Andrew Methven posted online he’d effectively been ‘camping at home’.
Residents complained the time it was taking to restore power was far too long and it was forcing them to eat out for every meal and children to do their homework by candlelight
Alicja Byrne said the community support has been amazing, but the constant reassurances from Ausgrid that power would be restored ‘soon’ was frustrating.
‘(My) kids have heaps of homework. Homework is done with candles when it gets dark,’ Ms Byrne told AAP.
She appreciates Ausgrid crews are working hard but says there ‘must be something fundamentally wrong’ with the network provider’s operation.
‘It seems like we were living in a third world country. We have had storms before – why is this country not mitigating risks?’
Her power was restored on Saturday afternoon.
Ausgrid said 1000 contractors were working with SES to restore power but their efforts were being hampered by storm-weakened trees
Ausgrid says up to 1000 contractors – assisted by the SES and interstate energy providers – were working each day to reconnect customers.
Giving accurate estimates was difficult as a full picture of the damage required crews to examine each site thoroughly, a spokesman told AAP.
He said complicated repairs have also been hampered by storm-weakened trees falling during the week on lines – sometimes on lines repaired only days earlier.
‘Ausgrid strongly urges the public not to attempt the removal of fallen trees as they may conceal fallen wires,’ the company said in a statement.
More than 132,000 premises have had power restored since Sunday.
8000 homes and business still await urgent repairs.