March 1, 2013
Power was restored yesterday to the final seven Ergon Energy customers near Proston affected by damage to the network sustained during flooding in the South Burnett on Tuesday night.
The blackout initially affected all 300 customers on a feeder line from Proston to Durong, but crews could not immediately respond due to extensive flooding in the area.
A helicopter was brought in from Roma on Wednesday morning to patrol the line and it identified a broken cross-arm as the cause.
That section of the line was isolated so the main line could be re-energised to restore supply to the other customers about 12:15pm on Wednesday.
Ergon attempted to contact the remaining seven customers to inform them their power could not be restored because conditions were still too wet for the repair crew’s vehicles.
A live line crew from Kingaroy worked on the repairs on Thursday morning so power could be maintained to customers on the main line.
They completed the task so power could be restored to the remaining customers shortly after midday.
