Earth Watch Report - Power Outage - Storms
....
| 17.11.2012 | Power Outage | Australia | State of Queensland, [Brisbane, Ipswich and Somerset ] |  |
 |
....
Power Outage in Australia on Saturday, 17 November, 2012 at 12:11 (12:11 PM) UTC.
| Description | |
| A fire started, powerlines were ripped down, trees were uprooted and roofs collapsed as severe thunderstorms ripped across Queensland and caused mass electricity outages. About 13,000 homes and business in Brisbane, Ipswich and Somerset were left without power as rain, hail and lightning struck the region at about 11am (AEST) on Saturday. In Ipswich, a small grass fire was sparked when lightning struck a crane next to the city's hospital just after 10am but the incoming rain extinguished it, a Department of Community Services (DCS) spokeswoman said. In Ann Street in the CBD, a hotel roof collapsed under the storm while another 72 calls for assistance were made asking for help with leaking roofs and fallen trees, "It turned day into night," a SES worker said. "It came quickly and then it left." By 6.30pm about 300 homes remained without power, with the majority of the outages continuing in the Algester area south of Brisbane. An Energex spokeswoman said they were unsure as to when power would be returned to the area as the repairs were "complicated". "We are working through the problems and doing it as quickly as we can," she said. More than 11,000 lightning strikes were recorded across Queensland's southeast since 10am, with Energex receiving reports of more than 100 powerlines down. Despite the widespread outages, the situation was not as bad as they have seen, the spokeswoman said. "In our storm season we can see 20,000 to 30,000 lose power so 13,000 is really reasonable for us," she said. But she said Energex was looking towards Toowoomba to see if the second forecast storm would wreak more damage. On Saturday evening the Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) was continuing to send out severe weather warnings for much of the state. "Very dangerous thunderstorms" were detected at a weather radar near Oakey, west of Brisbane, at about 6.30pm. The thunderstorms were forecast to move towards the northeast and to hit Haden, Cooyar and the area north of Crows Nest, Blackbutt, Yarraman and the area north of Cooyar. |
....
Related articles
- Storms create havoc across much of Qld (bigpondnews.com)
- Storms create havoc across Qld (news.smh.com.au)
- Severe Qld storm leaves 6000 without power (news.com.au)
- Live blog: Storms sweep southern Queensland (abc.net.au)
- Extreme Weather in Australia - 90-kilometres-an-hour winds and marble-sized hailstones recorded on the coast (familysurvivalprotocol.com)
- Hail, rain as storms strike Qld (dailytelegraph.com.au)
- Storm lashes Brisbane, turning day into night (smh.com.au)
- Wild weather hits Brisbane (abc.net.au)
Comments