Power out after a storm in Sale: what to do

When the power goes out in a storm, first work out whether the whole street is off or only your house. A street-wide outage is a network fault that AusNet, the company running the poles and wires in this part of Gippsland, has to fix, and an electrician cannot speed that up. If only your home is dark, check the safety switches on your board, and call a licensed electrician if one will not reset or you can see damage.

Is it the network or just your house?

A quick look outside answers most of it:

• Neighbours’ lights, street lights and the shop down the road are off too. It is almost certainly a network outage. Check AusNet’s outage information and wait.
• Everyone else has power and you do not. The fault is probably inside your property, often a tripped safety switch.
• Some of your lights work and others do not, or lights flicker and dim. That can point to a supply problem. Energy Safe Victoria says not to touch the switchboard or anything metal in the house and to contact your electricity distributor straight away.

The Quote Yard’s Gippsland electrical guide makes the same point: look at whether neighbours are off and check the network’s outage information before calling an electrician, because a network fault is outside anything an electrician is allowed to repair.

The checklist: what to do after a storm cuts the power

Work through these in order. Every step comes from Energy Safe Victoria’s advice on what to do in a power outage unless another source is named.

1. Look for fallen or broken lines before you go outside. If you see one, keep at least 8 to 10 metres from it. The Quote Yard guide adds that a downed line should be reported to AusNet.
2. Find your torch. Use a torch or a battery lantern to move around the house.
3. Switch off and unplug appliances. Heaters, ovens, kettles and power tools left on can start up without anyone watching when the supply returns.
4. Check the switchboard. If a safety switch has tripped, try resetting it. Leave the board alone if you can see damage or water around it.
5. If the switch will not reset, stop there. Call a licensed electrician.
6. Leave electrical repairs alone. Energy Safe is blunt about this: do not try to fix electrical problems yourself, and always use a licensed electrician.
7. Report tingles or shocks. A tingle from a tap, appliance or metal fitting means the wiring needs checking by a licensed electrician; contact your electricity company as well.
8. Shut down solar and treat a battery as live. Follow your solar system’s safe isolation procedure. Stay away from damaged panels or cables, and do not switch a damaged home battery back on until it has been inspected.
9. Run a generator outside only. Never inside the house, a garage or a tent, and never plugged into a power point or wired into the switchboard. The next section explains why.
10. Watch the board once power is back. The Quote Yard guide says a switch that trips again straight away points to a fault inside the house, and that needs an electrician.

Keep this list somewhere you can read it in the dark, such as printed and taped inside the meter box door or the pantry.

How do you run a generator without putting anyone at risk?

Plenty of farms and lifestyle blocks around Sale keep a portable generator for long outages. Energy Safe’s rules are short: run it outdoors, away from doors and windows; turn it off and let it cool before refuelling; keep it out of the wet and away from dry grass; use heavy-duty outdoor leads; and store fuel in proper containers.

The dangerous mistake is feeding the house through a power point with a homemade double-ended lead. That can send power back up the line to where line workers expect it to be dead, and Energy Safe says doing your own electrical work is unsafe and illegal. The safe way is a generator inlet and changeover switch fitted by a licensed electrician, which the generator changeover switches page covers in detail.

What if water got into the house or the switchboard?

Heavy rain often arrives with the wind. If any part of your home was under water, The Quote Yard guide says to leave the power off to that part until a licensed electrician has checked it, and to photograph the damage for your insurer before anything is moved. Energy Safe adds that if you come home to damaged wiring or equipment, do not turn the power on.

A switchboard that has been wet, sparks, smells of burning or feels hot is a job for an electrician before anyone flips a switch. You can ask a local electrician to check flood or storm damage once the area is safe to enter.

Is it a job for AusNet or an electrician?

What you can see	Who handles it
The whole street or town is dark	AusNet, as the network operator
A line is down in the street or across your driveway	AusNet; keep 8 to 10 metres away
A tree has damaged a private line on your own farm	A registered electrical contractor, as AusNet advises for private lines
One safety switch in your house trips and will not reset	A licensed electrician
Water has reached the switchboard or power points	A licensed electrician before power goes back on
Lights flicker or dim through the house	Your electricity distributor first
A generator needs connecting to the house	A licensed electrician fitting an inlet and changeover switch

Private poles and lines on rural blocks follow different rules from the street network. The private power poles guide explains where the owner’s responsibility starts. For faults that stay after the network is back, the fault finding page explains how an electrician tracks them down.

How long can outages last in Wellington Shire?

Long enough to plan for. After the storm on Friday 29 October 2021, Wellington Shire Council reported on 1 November that around 2,400 residents in the shire were still without electricity. The council noted that many of them lived outside the major towns with no mains water or gas, so they also had no running water and no heating.

Earlier that year, Australian Institute for Disaster Resilience records of the June 2021 storm list Wellington among the most affected council areas in Victoria. Power was cut to about 200,000 customer connections on the night of 9 June, rising to about 300,000 the following day.

The practical lesson for rural households is to sort out backup power and a plan for water before storm season starts, since the outage itself is the worst time to book an electrician.

What should you prepare before storm season?

• A working torch and spare batteries for each bedroom
• A printed copy of this checklist and the location of the main switch
• Photos of your switchboard, so an electrician can see it before visiting
• The model and output rating of any generator you own
• Your solar system’s shutdown instructions, kept near the inverter
• A note of which appliances need switching off

Holiday homes need extra thought. Loch Sport houses use a Gippsland Water pressure sewer system with a pump unit on each property, and the town has no reticulated water. Gippsland Water’s pressure sewer advice says that if you are leaving for a week or more you should flush the system and leave both the mains power and the water supply either off or on together. The Loch Sport area page has more on electrical work in lakeside homes. On farms around Heyfield, the price guide notes that long outages have made backup generators common where pumps, dairies and refrigeration cannot be left without power.

Who will come out?

This site passes enquiries to independent licensed electrical businesses in the area, and they decide whether and when they can attend. See the about page for how that works. During a widespread outage, local electricians can be booked out for weeks with storm repairs, so send your enquiry early.

Next step

Once the storm has passed and the area is safe, tell the electrician which safety switch tripped or whether the whole board is dead, whether water reached the house or switchboard, and whether solar, a battery or a generator is involved. Photos of the board and any damage help most. Then send a storm damage electrical enquiry with your town and the details above.

Send a job enquiry