Storms that rolled across the Northern Rivers and Mid North Coast on Wednesday (13 November) afternoon and into the evening caused extensive damage to Essential Energy’s electricity network impacting over 8,000 customers from Gloucester up to Tweed Heads.

Strong winds blew a large volume of trees and vegetation debris onto numerous areas of the network damaging crossarms and other components.

The first power outage from the storm was just before 3:00pm in the Woodburn area and continued across the various communities until 9:30pm.

Crews worked to restore power as quickly and safely as possible. By 11:00pm, just over 4,100 customers remained without power overnight in the two highest impacted areas of Wauchope and the Northern Rivers.

Restoration efforts continued throughout Thursday (14 November), with crews successfully restoring power more than 3,000 customers.

Due to the extent of the damage, around 850 customers in Bangalow, Rosebank, Federal, Goonengerry, Myocum, Mullumbimby and surrounding areas remained without power overnight with restorations expected to be completed between this evening (Friday 15 November) and tomorrow (Saturday 16 November).

Additional crews from 8 depots have been called in to help with the continued restoration work and clean-up effort.

Customers will be sent an SMS with an estimated time of restoration (ETR) as they become available. Some of the times may be impacted while the work is progressing and may alter. Those who aren’t receiving a text message are encouraged to contact their energy retailer to ensure their contact details are up to date. Customers can also find more information via our power outages webpage.

Essential Energy thanks customers for their patience and reminds the public to stay at least eight metres away from fallen powerlines, power poles or damaged electricity infrastructure and report immediately to 132080. If life-threatening, call triple 0. For more information about how to prepare for and stay safe during storms, visit our Storm Safety webpage.