Outage ‘trials’and tribulations PEOPLE are weary of power outages in the Hills, with Western Power citing a ‘stand-alone system trial’ as the first reason for service failure.
However, a Parkerville resident said she was told the outages were the result of a ‘feeder trip’ and engineers were trying to find the cause.
“When I asked what are they going to do about, they said there is no preventative measures that they can implement,” she said.
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READ NOWThe resident subsequently lodged a complaint and urged other members of a local chat site to do the same.
Glen Forrest resident Tracey Jones told the Gazette the power often went off at inconvenient times as she was preparing family dinner.
Tenille Flintoff, who runs a home business in Glen Forrest, said her property lost power twice in one day last week.
“We received nothing from Western Power about a trial or any kind of warning about the outages,” she said.
“Fortunately we have a generator, but many people don’t and some residents who contacted Western Power said they were told, ‘Well, that’s what you get for living in the Hills’.”
She said many people had voiced their concerns on Western Power’s Facebook page.
A spokesman for Western Power said on Tuesday that four power disruptions were recorded, from 34 minutes to three hours, between October 30 and November 6.
He said crews responded to outages affecting 1800 customers in Parkerville, Glen Forrest, Darlington, Hovea and Gidgegannup.
“While the cause of the outages were unknown at that time, our priority is to make the area safe and remove any risks to community safety before restoring power as safely and swiftly as possible,” he said.
“A subsequent patrol on Tuesday morning identified damage to an overhead power line. Works to repair this were undertaken that same day, impacting about 50 customers.”
Customers affected by a power outage lasting 12 continuous hours or more may be eligible for a State Government payment.
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