The damage behind the
THOUSANDS of homes and businesses in the South West are still without power and many face being cut off for the rest of the week, after yesterday's storms caused the most extensive damage to the state's power network in its history.
This morning Bunbury was littered with fallen trees, power outages and storm damage.
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Click the image to see more storm damage.
Wind gusts consistent with a category two cyclone lashed the South West of the state, with Bunbury receiving recorded winds in excess of 110km/h, while the highest gusts of 139km/h were recorded at Cape Naturaliste.
The Bunbury Hospital has received minor damage to the paediatric wing, and a tent from the Joseph Ashton Circus, currently set up in Busselton, was ripped from the ground at the height of the storm.
Rockingham Hospital continues to run on generators.
In a statement at 8am this morning, Western Power said that due to the extent of the damage to the network, many homes will be without power for up to a week.
The extensive damage to the Western Power network is the worst in its history, with 161,000 customers without power at the height of the storm yesterday.
Hundreds of power lines, streetlight wires and household service lines were brought down by flying debris last night, while about 50,000 homes have had their power restored since the peak of the storm hit yesterday afternoon.
Western Power spokeswoman Miriam Borthwick said the top priority was restoring power to Rockingham Hospital, which has been running on generators over night.
Power at St John of God Hospital in Bunbury was reconnected overnight.
Western Power's call centre received over 100,000 calls last night. Ms Borthwick said all available staff and contractors had been called on to help restore services.
"Some houses could be off for a week," she said.
"We now think that this is the most extensive and widespread damage the network has ever experienced from one single storm.
"We have about 1500 jobs on the system that need attending to - several hundred power lines ... (and) individual customer home wires that have been brought down."
Ms Borthwick urged people to stay away from fallen parts of the network and avoid pools of water.
She said Western Power had 1500 jobs still on the system this morning.
About 90 poles are still down this morning, and people who find fallen power lines are being urged to avoid them, and treat them as if they were live.
Ms Borthwick said towns where major services such as hospitals were impacted by power outages had their power restored first, including Ravensthorpe, Bremer Bay and Denmark.
"It is still possible there are some power lines that have been brought down that are live, that we haven't been able to get to yet... so please keep out of puddles... for the next 24 hours," she said.
Western Power will hold a meeting this morning, but Ms Borthwick said they would not be bringing extra workers over from the Eastern States.
She said the issue was around availability of machinery, rather than a lack of workers.
Important numbers:
• Western Power:13 13 51
• FESA: 1300 657 209 or www.fesa.wa.gov.au
• SES: 132 500