Thousands Still Without Power After Massive Storm Hits Southwest WA

Thousands of homes are still without power after one of the most powerful storms in years smashed southwest Western Australia over the weekend. Clean-up efforts are continuing across the coast as the powerful storm wreaked havoc on the region, downing trees, ripping roofs off buildings, flooding roads, and causing major damage to power networks.

Wind gusts of up to 135km/h, consistent with winds from a category 2 cyclone, were reported in Cape Naturaliste. Busselton Jetty also recorded 120km/h winds, while Garden Island experienced 106km/h winds.

At the height of Sunday's storm, over 170,000 households were reported to have lost power. As of Tuesday, around 12,000 homes across the network were still affected by outages, down from approximately 26,000 on Monday, according to Western Power.

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"Western Power emergency response crews are continuing to work to address a significant number of hazards on the network. There are 44 hazards remaining, down from 200 yesterday afternoon and 500 at the peak," Western Power said on Tuesday. "Our priority remains responding to reported hazards to ensure the safety of the community, our crews, and other agencies. Once hazards have been attended to, crews are able to commence repairs and restoration of power."

All planned non-essential network maintenance work has been cancelled while crews focus on storm recovery efforts. "Estimated restoration times will be updated as our crews continue to assess the damage and repairs required," Western Power added.

Helicopters have been deployed to help move crews to restore power in regional areas. Volunteer SES crews have been working around the clock since Sunday's storm, with 144 crew members still responding to hundreds of call-outs.

"On a normal, typical storm at this time of the year, you might have 100 requests for assistance. We understand there's more than 800 for this storm, so this is a really big event," Emergency Services Minister Paul Papalia said on Monday. "That no one has been injured and we have no casualties is quite extraordinary and we should be grateful for that."

The Department of Fire and Emergency Services (DFES) Assistant Commissioner Jon Broomhall said that of the 844 requests for assistance, more than 600 came from the Perth metropolitan area and 198 from the South West.

Some flights due to arrive at Perth Airport were forced to divert to Kalgoorlie as strong winds made it difficult to land. A TransNusa flight from Bali made two unsuccessful attempts to land on Runway 24 before heading to Kalgoorlie, where it landed two hours behind schedule at 9:06 pm AWST. A Virgin plane from Karratha and a Qantas plane from Sydney also had to be diverted to Kalgoorlie.

Train services were also impacted due to the storm but have as of Tuesday begun running without disruptions.