(Photo: Denise Keelan Photography)
December 5, 2016
Saturday night’s wild thunderstorms in the South Burnett caught motorists by surprise, brought down trees and branches, and left thousands of residents without power for more than 21 hours.
The threat of heavy rain and lightning brought the Goomeri Christmas Carnival to an early close, and scared away patrons at the Proston Christmas Carnival.
Heavy rain bucketed down in Cherbourg and Murgon, causing motorists to pull over on the Bunya Highway until the rain eased.
The same thing occurred on the D’Aguilar Highway between Nanango and Blackbutt.
Trees dropped branches across the highway and along the roadside on the outskirts of Yarraman.
The storms also ripped through Teelah and Taromeo, north of Blackbutt.
A Yarraman man was taken to hospital with leg injuries after a tree fell on his motorbike on the D’Aguilar Highway between Yarraman and Blackbutt.
The storms caused 2690 South Burnett residents to lose power for more than 21 hours.
Areas affected included parts of Kingaroy and Nanango, as well as Kunioon, Crawford, Goodger, Coolabunia, Booie and Taabinga.
According to Ergon, the power went off just before 7:00pm on Saturday, and was not restored until about 4:45pm on Sunday.
As well, there were numerous shorter blackouts across the region, including in the Kingaroy, Nanango, Yarraman and Proston areas.
Ergon Energy pulled in work crews from Bundaberg, Dalby, Chinchilla and Maryborough to assist with restoring power.
Lightning strikes started small fires on the outskirts of Kingaroy, as well as damaging an electricity transformer in Tessmann’s Road.
[Photo: Denise Keelan Photography]
