NSW inquiry hears from Far West locals on 'enormous array' of power outage issues
Rita Bruggy was nervous about sleeping during the outages with no power for her CPAP machine. (ABC Broken Hill: Bill Ormonde)
In short:
A parliamentary inquiry established after power outages hit far west NSW last October has visited impacted communities.
Politicians were told about an "enormous array of problems" caused by unstable power supply and blackouts that went for weeks.
What next?
A report will be written and will be table to the NSW Parliament in May.
When a power outage hit Broken Hill last October, Rita Bruggy was home by herself.
With her husband away, she was anxious.
"My problem was I have had 19 falls and trying to manoeuvre my way around at night in the dark was difficult," Ms Bruggy said.
"I had a torch that was flat, I had a VitalCALL that was flat, I had a phone that was flat, and my iPad was flat, so I had no contact with the outside world if I needed."
All of Ms Bruggy's devices went flat, leaving her unable to contact anyone in an emergency. (ABC Broken Hill: Bill Ormonde)
Severe storms damaged seven transmission towers, leaving far west New South Wales without power, initially for two days.
But then the region suffered through unstable power supply and rolling blackouts for weeks afterwards.
Two diesel-powered generators were meant to supply back-up power, but only one of them was actually functional.
At the time, Ms Bruggy was unsure how she would cope and was nervous to go to sleep without power for her continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) machine.
"Anyone on a CPAP machine knows, you do stop breathing with sleep apnoea, there's no oxygen to the brain and eventually you can die," she said.
"With no machine, you don't really want to fall asleep because you really don't want to die."
Members of the power inquiry listening to locals from Wilcannia. (ABC Broken Hill: Oliver Brown)
Inquiry hears from community
Ms Bruggy's story was just one of the many that members of a New South Wales parliamentary inquiry into the outages heard on their trip to far west New South Wales earlier this month.
Inquiry chair Clayton Barr said they wanted to hear about the impact on small and large communities.
"People lost fridges full of food, telecommunications dropped out, accessing fuel at the local petrol station so that you could put it in your generators was a bit of a problem," the Labor MP said.
"We've found an enormous array of problems happen when we don't have power … they're people's lived experiences and that's what we're going to report to parliament on."
Inquiry chair Clayton Barr says members have heard about an array of problems. (ABC Broken Hill: Oliver Brown)
The inquiry hear from people who had made submissions online.
"We also opened up open town hall meetings where anybody from the community could just walk in and have their say as well," Mr Barr said.
"So that's really important and it's been incredibly successful in terms of hearing some stories we otherwise wouldn't have heard."
Delay in visiting region
Wilcannia Working Party chair Rhonda Hynch said it was about time the government came out to the see the affected communities.
"Government … they speak for community people, but they haven't been out here to experience what we go through," she told the hearing in Wilcannia.
"I think it's eye-opening for the ladies and gentlemen … I thank them for coming out today,"
Rhonda Hynch (left) from the Wilcannia Working Party speaking to the inquiry. (ABC Broken Hill: Oliver Brown)
Ms Hynch said she hoped the politicians' trip to the far west resulted in action rather than just talk.
"Instead of arguing across the table with one another, step out into community hear it for yourselves because we live it here," she said.
The Committee on Environment and Planning's report is due to be presented to the NSW Parliament in May.