Tasmania and parts of Victoria have been warned to batten down the hatches and brace for power outages as one of winter’s most significant storm systems moves through.
The Bureau of Meteorology on Tuesday issued severe weather warnings for damaging winds across Victoria, Tasmania, and parts of New South Wales, South Australia and Western Australia, along with flood watches for Tasmania’s major rivers and parts of the north-west coast.
Victoria’s State Emergency Service urged the community to prepare for winds of up to 100km/h from Tuesday afternoon and into Wednesday, with gusts of up to 130km/h near the state’s alpine peaks.
Western, southern and eastern Tasmania could expect average winds of 60km/h to 70km/h, with peak gusts of up to 125km/h in parts of the east coast between Swansea and Orford until Tuesday night.
The warnings came after Sunday night storms left thousands without power until Monday morning.
Emergency service volunteers in Victoria had received 600 calls since Sunday afternoon, with hundreds of trees down across the state, the SES chief operations officer, Tim Wiebusch, said.
He said there had been 100 requests for assistance in the 24 hours to 11am on Tuesday, as he urged people to prepare for more severe weather.
“It’s important for community members to act now and take steps to protect their lives and property ahead of the forecast adverse weather, and in turn reduce their likelihood of needing emergency assistance,” he said in a statement.
Community members were encouraged to secure loose items such as outdoor furniture and trampolines and to park away from trees.
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Meanwhile, Ausnet urged Victorian customers to prepare for potential power outages and said life support customers should be ready to activate their emergency plan.
“Have battery operated torches and radios in a place easy to access,” a spokesperson said in a statement.
“Charge your battery packs so they’re ready to power your mobile phones (and) keep some cash on hand in case electronic payment systems go down during an outage.”
Australian electricity distribution company Powercor was also monitoring the weather and had boosted field crew numbers, network operators and customer specialists ahead of the storms.
“It’s important to have a plan and know what you would do if the power does go out – charge your phones, laptops and other devices, know how to open your garage door manually, and know where to turn for information,” the company’s head of network control, Peter Galey, said.
