1000's lose power in Australia thanks to lightning

[senorpepr]

A spectacular thunderstorm over Perth and the south-west of Western Australia has dumped heavy rains and left thousands without power.

The system responsible is now making it way through the wheatbelt.
A cold front hit the state's south-west with thunder and lightning about 1:00am AWST.
Mandurah recorded 23 millimeters of rain, Wandering 35, and Perth Airport 17.5mm.
The weather bureau's Bruce Buckley says the rainfall is continuing inland.
"The heaviest rains we would expect in the next six to 12 hours will be in the area from roughly Cunderdin, down to about Lake Grace and across towards Esperance and up into Kalgoorlie, and that area through there," he said.

Western Power's David Martin says lighting strikes left up to 10,000 homes around Perth without power overnight.
"During widespread lightning storms like this, you can get transformers that get damaged from direct lightning strikes, but in the main part it's fuses and protection equipment doing exactly what they should do on the network," he said.

Almost 2,000 homes remain without electricity.
A Perth man is counting his blessings after his townhouse was damaged during the thunderstorm.
Ray Davidson was watching television when his home was struck by lightning.
"Then all of a sudden there was an almighty explosion - it blew a hole in the carpet and in the slab. The air conditioning unit is just about non-existent," he said.

Councils on the mid-north coast of New South Wales estimate the violent weather that hit the region this week caused millions of dollars in damage.

Road Transit Authority, State Emergency Service and council crews are mopping up after winds up to 120 kilometers an hour and torrential rains caused flooding and brought down power lines and trees, damaging homes.

Emergency Services Minister Tony Kelly has declared the area a natural disaster zone.
The Bellingen Council is still assessing damage and clean-up costs as floodwaters recede. The town was isolated by flooding for much of yesterday.

There is concern that a major bridge in the town centre has suffered structural damage.
Coffs Harbor Council's acting general manager, Steve Sawtell, says the cost of the clean-up and private insurance claims will most likely add up to millions of dollars in damage.

"Yesterday morning when business opened up you could say we had about 17 roads closed around the community," Mr Sawtell said.

"Our parks people probably disposed of 90 tree-falls in the parks and we could have been up to another 150 trees in the outer rural area.

"[Among] our parks people and our works branch, we had about 120 people out in the field kicking on from about 2:00am or 3:00am yesterday."

SES spokesman Rick Stone says crews will work through today and into tomorrow to repair all the damage.
"This is one of the worst instances of storm damage that we've seen for some time and it could take us a couple of days to finish all the jobs," Mr Stone said.

"We ask people to be patient and of course to keep an eye on what's going on."
Mr Stone says the service has had to pool resources from across the state.
"A number of crews have been called in from around New South Wales, in particular from the western region of NSW, places such as Walgett, Wellington, Glen Innis, Deep Water, Ashford and these people are going to help Coffs Harbor today," he said.

"We've also got crews that have come from further up the north coast from Lismore and they'll be working hard today."
The SES says rain has stopped falling across the region and the winds have dropped.
However, many outlying communities remain isolated by flooding, including in the Macleay Valley west of Kempsey. In the Manning Valley, there is a minor flood warning current for the Manning River near Wingham and Taree.

The river is expected to peak around midday and some bridge and road closures are expected.