Power outages have hit the region in the last few days.
ELECTRICITY supplier Essential Energy says the summer has seen one of the worst storm seasons in a number of years with more power outages yesterday.
Since Sunday night Essential Energy crews across the New England and North West regions have been busy restoring power supplies interrupted by storms and, in one area, a colony of flying foxes.
Regional general manager, Matt Patterson, said the storms so far this summer had been the worst the organisation has seen for a number of years and have caused significant damage to the power network.
The storms on Sunday night and Monday morning caused a major power pole on Porcupine Hill at Gunnedah to fail shortly before 6am on Monday.
The failure resulted in an unplanned power interruption for about 800 households and businesses in the Breeza, Carroll, Curlewis and Pullaming areas.
Mr Patterson said crews had been progressively restoring power to customers affected by the storm damage and he anticipated power would be fully restored by today.
“Restoration efforts have been significant given the power pole supports three major powerlines, its location on the side of Porcupine Hill and the boggy conditions surrounding it.”
Gunnedah-based Essential Energy crews were being assisted by additional crews from Barraba, Narrabri, Quirindi and Tamworth.
Monday night’s storms also caused some isolated power interruptions across the region.
At 2.30am yesterday more than 2500 households and businesses in the Inverell, Bukkulla and Wallangra areas where affected by a power interruption for more than two and a half hours.
A colony of flying foxes residing on the Macintyre River, behind the sporting complex at Inverell, was the cause of this outage as well as a number of others in the area over recent weeks.
“The good news is the flying foxes eventually move on,” Mr Patterson said.