Power

By Tania Martin
A MONBULK woman is calling for answers after she was unable to get through to an operator on the electricity service faults line during a black out last week.
Anne Jones tried the emergency fault line number, plus several of the power companies but was unable to get through to an operator.
This was distressing for Mrs Jones because her husband, David is terminally ill and she needed power to keep him cool and comfortable.
Mrs Jones said one of the companies she rang had a recorded message saying if it was life threatening to stay on line.
But, she said the recorded message kept repeating every five minutes and after an hour she gave up.
This all happened on Sunday, 22 January, at 8am following storms on Saturday night and in the middle of 40 degree weather.
Neighbour Leonie Williams also has raised concerns about not being able to talk to a person during the criss.
Ms Williams said she also rang several power companies as she knew Anne would be having trouble getting through.
She said the thing that frustrated her the most was that she got through to several recorded messages that said that she didn’t have a fault in her area.
In the meantime Mrs Jones rang her daughter, Larissa, who lives in Belgrave South, who also tried several of the power companies.
Mrs Jones said Larissa finally got through to someone at TRU Energy, but was told that because Anne wasn’t a customer they couldn’t help her.
Shortly after 9am on Sunday, Mrs Jones and her husband drove to her daughter’s house to find a cool place for her husband.
“There is no way we could have sat in the house with no power or fans. The alternative would have been to drive David to the hospital or call an ambulance,” she said.
Monbulk MP James Merlino said dialling the emergency fault line 13799 usually goes through to the call centre, but after further investigation was told that the system crashed during the storm.
He said SpAusNet who supplies electricity to the power companies controls the call centre and said that the system crashing caused the problems with people not being able to get through to an operator.
Mr Merlino has assured local residents that this incident was isolated and that if they were to call the emergency line in the future they would get through to the call centre.
“The system crashed, that’s why no one could get through to a call centre,” he said.
Mrs Jones said the only way she could find out if the power was back on was to call the Safeway Supermarket in Monbulk.
“I didn’t want to bring David home if the power wasn’t back on yet, and there was no other way of finding out,” she said.
The Mail attempted to contact SpAusNet but was unable to get a response before going to print.