March 14, 2018
Storm cells that crossed the South Burnett on Thursday afternoon caused widespread blackouts, although power was restored within half an hour in most locations.
Power was lost from Boondooma to Maidenwell, with more than 6800 Ergon Energy customers losing power at some point as the storms crossed just after 5:00pm.
The longest outage appears to have occurred in the Brooklands to Maidenwell area where about 470 customers lost power for about an hour.
By 7:00pm, power had been restored across the region except for parts of Nanango where two outages were still affecting a total of 529 Ergon customers.
About 220 customers were also without power in the Benarkin / Taromeo area as well as a handful of residences in Durong, Inverlaw, Kingaroy and Wooroolin.
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The storms brought welcome rain to some parts of the South Burnett while other areas received almost nothing.
The Bureau of Meteorology noted that 52mm was recorded at Blackbutt during the afternoon.
southburnett.com.au readers reported falls of 12mm (Coolabunia), 20mm (Wattle Camp), 20mm (Murgon), 56mm (Bjelke-Petersen Dam) and 40mm (Nanango).
Lightning strikes were also blamed for starting fires at Boyneside and Hodgleigh.
[UPDATED]
