Thousands of properties still without power in Kempsey LGA after 96km/h weekend winds

Heavy rainfall and strong winds buffeted the Mid North Coast over the weekend, uprooting entire trees, bringing down power lines and leaving hundreds of thousands across the Mid North Coast and New England regions without power for days.

As of 9am on Tuesday, August 5, about 3,000 homes and businesses in Kempsey Shire remain without power.

The impacted properties located in the Kempsey LGA include Bellimboppini, Clybucka, Arakoon, Crescent Head, Aldavilla, Grassy Head, Yarrahapinni, Kinchela and surrounds.

Winds of up to 96km/hr were recorded in Kempsey on Saturday.

A spokesperson for Essential Energy told the Mid North Coaster restoration works still needed are “complex” and in “hard to access locations”, however, progress has been made. Helicopters will continue to patrol areas of the network today to assess for damage. 

“Additional crews are on the ground to support reconstructing areas of the network, which includes the replacement of power poles and spans of wire,” they said.

Estimated times of power restoration are being updated on the Essential Energy website outages page.

What happened?

Senior Meteorologist at the Bureau of Meteorology (BoM), Angus Hines, told the Mid North Coaster the weekend’s “powerful weather system” didn’t make a direct strike on the country and was sitting off the east coast – common for low pressure systems off Northern and Eastern NSW.

According to Hines, the location of the weather system meant it “was always going to be a story of both heavy rain and strong wind, as well as the very cold air that brought the snow up into those higher parts of New South Wales.”

The strong winds, which stuck around for about 36 hours, reached 96km/hr in Kempsey on Saturday – the strongest gust recorded on the Mid North Coast over the weekend. Wind gusts started to ease on Sunday but remained in the 60s and 70s.

“Those southerlies were really sort of racing up the coastline as well as inland,” Hines said.

“So people who were living away from the coast at elevation would have also experienced a very windy weekend with a cold wind coming up from the south, and quite a lot of rainfall in the mix as well.”

Further north in Coffs Harbour, the strongest wind recorded was on Sunday at 67km/hr.

Conditions settle

For the Mid North Coast – a region that has been impacted by ex-tropical cyclone Alfred and flooding in March, record breaking flooding in May, and now storms in August – the community is relieved the conditions have settled.

It is now mostly sunny across the Mid North Coast, according to the Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) weather report. Severe weather warnings have been cancelled, however, a hazardous surf warning across the state’s coastline remains in place. NSW SES has warned riverine rises remain a risk as floodwater moves downstream today.