Residents fear ‘new normal’ as power outages stretch into fifth day for 11,000 households

Some Victorians who are without power after savage winds last Friday have been told their electricity may not be reconnected until the weekend.

About 8000 people on the AusNet network and 3800 United Energy customers are still without electricity.

Neil Mitchell has received calls from affected people in Hurstbridge, Croydon North, Mount Eliza, Gembrook, Frankston, Pakenham Upper, Tyabb, Knox, Red Hill, Mornington, Gippsland, Camberwell, Whittlesea, Cape Schanck, Langwarrin.

Emerald resident Caroline said the power outage in her area means people also have no water.

“It just seems that there isn’t enough of the crews out to fix it. We haven’t seen anyone. We’ve got power lines down, roads blocked,” she told Neil Mitchell.

“What we’re worried about is that this is becoming the new normal. You know, there’s a storm and then people can be without power for a week plus.”

Knox woman, Joanna, said there’s a live wire in the middle of her street that still hasn’t been addressed, despite multiple calls to AusNet.

“It’s still there. Anyone can touch it. No one has come and disabled it or fixed it or anything,” she said.

Press PLAY below to hear about the fears of fed up Victorians who’ve been without power for days

United Energy spokeswoman Emma Tyner warned some homes can expect to remain without power into the weekend.

She said there are some downed power lines that haven’t yet been attended to.

“We still have about 945 wires (down),” she said.

In a statement, AusNet confirmed about 8000 customers are still off supply.

The energy provider has asked for patience while they do they “challenging job of rebuilding the network”.

“All planned outages are postponed unless it’s for essential bushfire mitigation and there may be some delays on new connections as we prioritise restoring power to customers,” the statement read.

Press PLAY below to hear from the latest on the outages from United Energy