Remote communities experiencing power outages will be eligible for financial support after the state government issues a natural disaster declaration. Broken Hill and other parts of the far-west have been disconnected from the grid for days after a wild windstorm. This evening the sole back-up generator providing them with power has started to trip.
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00:00The race is on to construct temporary replacements for these transmission towers knocked over
00:08during last week's huge storm.
00:11Until then, Broken Hill and much of the Far West is relying on a single diesel-powered
00:16generator, forcing local businesses to manage their power consumption.
00:21We had to cancel the Sunday evening shows and now we're closed until the pylons are
00:27replaced and the normal electricity generation is back online.
00:31The mines have ceased production since the storm hit and workers won't return until
00:36power from the grid is restored.
00:39Miners have the option of using their annual leave or taking leave without pay.
00:44It's a crazy situation to think that people are going to be impacted with not having any
00:49money come in each fortnight.
00:52It's going to hurt a lot of people, yeah.
00:53New South Wales government has now declared the incident a natural disaster, following
00:58pressure from Broken Hill's mayor and the nationals.
01:01What it will allow is government to compensate and give money back to the people, also increase
01:06the amount of services.
01:08The Perillia mine is closed, there's 500 workers there being impacted.
01:12It's costing the mine $250,000 each and every day and people are not quite sure what's happening.
01:19The situation has been made worse by the lack of a second functioning generator, with
01:24Transgrid confirming that generator number two has been out of service since September,
01:30with it needing more work to get it back up and running again.
01:33When you've got one connector in and one connector out in one of the most isolated cities, not
01:38just in Australia but in the entire world, you need to make sure that you've got back-up
01:42generation.
01:43The temporary towers aren't expected to be in place for at least another two weeks, leaving
01:49many here in the dark.