Water supply contaminated after night of wild weather
Residents in almost 90 suburbs across Victoria have been urged to boil water due to electrical damage caused by wild storms across Victoria on Thursday night.
Three people, including a four-year-old boy, have been killed by falling trees after a cold front brought damaging gusts through the state.
Yarra Valley Water said some water had not been treated to the usual standard as a result, and that 88 suburbs should boil water. "Power has now returned and the initial issue has been addressed, however undisinfected water is still within some areas," Yarra Valley Water said.
The water contamination has triggered panic-buying. A woman told radio station 3AW that customers at a supermarket in Doreen were stocking up on water. "It was like the toilet paper," she said. "It was as busy as Christmas. Some people were running ... just boil a kettle."
Water should be boiled as a precaution for drinking, brushing your teeth, food preparation, making baby formula, ice, or bathing infants in the 88 suburbs including Epping, Doncaster, Croydon, Coburg North, Craigieburn, Mernda and Ringwood.
Meanwhile, thousands of people are still without power on Friday, while residents in Belgrave woke up to crushed cars and fallen-in roofs.
Photo of house damage at Apsley Rd in Belgrave.Credit:Luis Enrique Ascui
Power company AusNet, which services the east of the state, recorded more than 83,000 outages at 6.30pm. A total of 121,000 AusNet customers were impacted and around 50,000 people woke up without power on Friday morning.
The wild weather brought a tree down on the corner of Spencer and Hawke streets in Melbourne's north.
A spokeswoman said it could take days for some homes to get the power back on.
Meanwhile, United Energy, which provides electricity to Melbourne's inner south-east and the Mornington Peninsula had more than 40,000 properties without power, more than 2000 of which were still without power early on Friday morning.
West of Melbourne, Powercor and CitiPower had more than 14,000 customers affected on Thursday night.
What Melbourne's east looked like on the VicEmergency app just before 10pm on Thursday night.Credit:VicEmergency
The State Emergency Service received 1184 calls for help in the 12 hours to 6.30am, including 403 calls between 7.30pm and 8.30pm.
More than 1010 of the calls overnight were for trees down, mostly in Belgrave, Lilydale and Emerald, south-east of Melbourne.
On Friday, Premier Daniel Andrews said the Department of Health and Human Services will urgently update its advice to allow for affected residents to seek help during the power outage and storm damage.
"This is not an ordinary storm event because of course, it occurs in the midst of very strict coronavirus rules,'' he said.
He said DHHS advice had been updated. ''That is not an invitation for people to do things that don't need to be done but we do recognise that with the volume of work and even though the SES do an amazing job, there will be other needs that will need to be met by perhaps a family member,'' he said.
"We know and understand this is unique and we don't want those coronavirus rules to make it any harder, but we just have to find that balance point and I am confident that we can."
Mr Andrews urged residents in the 88 suburbs impacted by the now-fixed Yarra Valley Water issue to boil their water to avoid getting sick.