thanks for your patience this storm season

On Sunday 16 November, South East Queensland was hit by one of the worst storm events in decades. Thunderstorms moved across the region from the south, bringing torrential rain, hail, and winds that were compared to a cyclone. This caused widespread damage to homes and powerlines – the likes of which hadn’t been seen since 1985.

Three days later another line of storms brought flooding rains to widespread areas of South East Queensland, hitting areas around Ipswich and Brisbane outer western suburbs especially hard.

On Thursday 20 November another series of storms, which included more than 6000 lightning strikes, large hail, strong winds and heavy rains, ravaged the region.

During the five days of severe weather, local ENERGEX crews worked tirelessly alongside other emergency services teams including the SES, Queensland Fire and Rescue, Queensland Police, the Army, and other electricity crews who came to help from Ergon Energy and Country Energy in New South Wales. The team effort, supported by a great community spirit, helped restore the power, as quickly and safely as possible.

To all our customers who were affected by the storms, we thank you for your patience and for alerting us to fallen powerlines.

sunday 16 november at a glance

We received reports of more than 650 fallen powerlines – including nearly 120kms of service wires connecting houses to the power network.
More than to 230,000 ENERGEX customers experienced a power interruption during the storm – almost 20% of our customers.
Nearly 500 homes were so badly damaged that ENERGEX could not safely reconnect them to the grid.
During Sunday and Monday more than 125,000 hits were made on the ENERGEX website, a more than 10-fold increase on the same days the previous week.
Our crews responded instantly, cancelling all other jobs, and working 75 hours straight to restore the power. Despite the severity of the damage to the electricity network, 90% of power was restored in 24 hours and 95% was restored within 48 hours.

during the five days of storms

More than 1500 ENERGEX people worked in the field to complete more than 3000 jobs. Many more worked in support roles in the call centre, control rooms and operational response hubs.
Our Contact Centre answered over 100,000 phone calls from customers.
More than 360,000 homes and businesses lost power - some two, three or four times. On average, around 83% of customers in urban areas had their power reconnected in less than four hours and 88% of rural customers had their power back on inside six hours.
ENERGEX worked closely with other emergency services teams to clear hundreds of trees and other debris in natural disaster areas, before rebuilding entire sections of the power network to restore the power.
More than 200,000 hits were recorded at the ENERGEX website mostly to receive power interruption/restoration updates, visit the lightning tracker and view media releases.

prepare for storms

Every year, ENERGEX provides information to the community about how to prepare for storm season. Just doing a few simple things around the home before the summer storms hit is the easy way to prevent problems and keep your home and loved ones safe from danger. Read more…

storm safety

feedback form

If you would like to share your experiences of the storm, please use our feedback form. Tell us what we did well, and also how we might do better next time.

If you have photos you would like us to publish, please send them via email.