As thousands of West Aussies sweat through day four of power outages caused by unprecedented summer storms, Premier Roger Cook has announced those in blackout areas will be eligible for a small compensation payment.
On Friday, Mr Cook revealed a decision had been made to double Western Power’s extended outage payment from the usual $120 to $240.
The money is available to any customer who has experienced 12 or more consecutive hours without power, with Mr Cook saying it would help “with purchasing food and household items that may have perished as a result of these outages”.
The first swathe of major blackouts was triggered on Tuesday after a severe thunderstorm lashed the Perth Hills, bringing hailstones, rain, and cyclone-level winds.
It’s understood the network damage is a result of lightning strikes during the storm.
Kalgoorlie, Merredin, Kellerberrin, and the surrounding areas were plunged into darkness on Wednesday evening, with more than 23,000 losing power due to storm damage to the transmission line that supplies Kalgoorlie-Boulder.
At the peak of the chaos, more than 34,000 homes and businesses were without power in the Perth Hills, Wheatbelt, Goldfields and Great Southern regions on Thursday morning as Western Power struggled to restore major outages across a significant proportion of its network.
About 7000 residents across the State remain without power on Friday, some waking up to day four of being in the dark, with fears the blackouts could last through the weekend for some properties.
The incident comes as temperatures are tipped to reach 41C in the coming days.
Customers in the Perth Hills are also without power, with hundreds forced to take matters into their own hands and buy their own generators.
Western Power crews worked throughout the night and restored power to 10,000 homes, the bulk of them in the Goldfields.
“We made significant progress last night and restored power to around 10,000 homes and businesses in the Goldfields area, including the Kalgoorlie, Merredin and Kellerberrin townsites. We still have considerable work to do to restore the remaining customers,” a Western power spokesperson said on Friday morning.
Some residents in the Wheatbelt and the Goldfields are unable to access the Triple-0 emergency lines, as 39 network base stations around the state are yet to be restored by Telstra on Friday.
Western Power cannot provide an exact restoration time for people.
However, a spokesperson said crews were making significant “headway” with damage assessments and repairs.
Some Kalgoorlie residents have been supplied power overnight thanks to the undamaged section of the 220KV line via the 132KV network.
“Synergy has conducted repairs on the gas turbine generator in West Kalgoorlie, which now can be used to supply backup generation.
“To assist with power restoration efforts and help maintain supply, customers are asked to please limit their energy use if they have power or once they are reconnected.”
Emergency services are urging communities to “look out for each other” and check on vulnerable neighbours, while police are upping patrols in affected zones and hospitals are still operational.
People experiencing an outage for more than 12 hours can apply for their extended outage payment via Extended Outages Payment once power is available again.
Check the latest updates on the extended power outages on Western Power.
With files from Lauren Price and Josh Zimmerman