Victoria power outage: Business owners left in the dark, thousands still without electricity

More than 100,000 homes and businesses in Victoria are still without power, more than 24 hours after fierce storms destroyed transmission towers and shut down a power station.

Many shopkeepers, cafe owners and butchers had to throw away thousands of dollars worth of produce on Wednesday after being left without electricity to power their fridges.

It’s one of the biggest power outages in Victorian history and it could happen weeks to fully recover.

The most affected properties are in eastern and northeastern Victoria and far eastern and northern Melbourne.

As of 10 p.m. Wednesday, 103,646 customers were without power, including nearly 2,500 power-dependent customers, meaning they have life-support equipment such as a ventilator or a kidney dialysis machine.

Bek Hamer and TJ Rainczuk, who run the White Wolf Cafe in Belgrave, Melbourne’s east, said A current issue they lost $7,000 worth of stock.

‘We have lost everything that is ephemeral. So dairy eggs, ham, bacon, all of our meat, chicken, cream, over $1.00 worth of Twisted Sister gelato, our Superkick Smoothies – we almost lost a lot of value on that too,” Ms. Hamer said.

The pair, who have only been running the cafe for just over a year, said they couldn’t even donate their food because it had gone off in the hot weather.

‘IIt’s okay that we’re losing money, but the fact that we’re just throwing food in the trash really kills me,” Ms. Hamer added.

Butcher Stuart Hamilton, who works at nearby Bills of Belgrave, said he expected to lose about $20,000.

“It will be weeks before we can get back to full production,” he said.

Elsewhere, Luckee Kholi, owner of Mulgrave IGA in Melbourne’s south-east, said he had to dump $150,000 worth of shares.

‘It’s a disaster. I have been here for 20 years and I have never seen anything like this,” Mr Kholi told the programme.

While many cafes and shops were simply closed, one pharmacist remained open and staff used flashlights on their phones and stored medicines in the fridge at home.

Luckee Kholi (pictured), owner of Mulgrave IGA in Melbourne’s south-east, had to dump $150,000 worth of shares

It is one of the biggest power outages in Victorian history and could take weeks to fully resolve (pictured: a store forced to close)

“Many people urgently need medicine, so we have to open,” says the pharmacy manager.

Prime Minister Jacinta Allan confirmed on Tuesday that a 50-year-old dairy farmer in South Gippsland had lost his life when he was struck by a shed roof that had blown off during Tuesday’s monster storm.

Hundreds of power poles and lines were downed and six transmission towers near Anakie collapsed on Tuesday, knocking all four units of the Loy Yang A power station offline.

More than half a million Victorians were without power at the height of Tuesday’s wild weather.

Victorian Energy Minister Lily D’Ambrosio said Ausnet was “the hardest hit”.

The wild weather has downed power lines and knocked out power to more than 500,000 homes across the state. It could take weeks to repair (photo: fallen power lines)

“25 percent of Ausnet’s network has been damaged, making this the worst event in their history,” Ms D’Ambrosio tweeted on Wednesday evening.

‘Ausnet has more than 8,000km of lines to inspect and hopes to complete this work this evening.

“At that point, they will better understand how long it will take to restore power to each area.”

Loy Yang A, a coal-fired power station in the Latrobe Valley in the state’s east, generates about 30 per cent of Victoria’s energy.

The station’s owner, AGL, confirmed that two units had returned to service as of Wednesday morning.