Major Power Outage Strikes Wollongong, Affecting Thousands
A widespread electricity failure has left thousands of residents and businesses across Wollongong without power on Thursday morning, with the outage also impacting critical infrastructure including the local police station.
Extensive Impact Across Multiple Suburbs
The power went out at approximately 7:50am on January 29, affecting properties from Stuart Park through the Wollongong CBD, extending west to Wiseman Park Reserve and south to MacCabe Park. A separate, smaller outage in Coniston around Gladstone Avenue and Ocean Street has left 67 additional properties without electricity.
In total, an estimated 2500 properties have been affected by the network fault. Endeavour Energy spokeswoman Rebecca Hill confirmed that equipment failure within the network triggered the power disruption. "Crews are on site and they think they have detected the fault which means it should be back on within two hours," she stated.
Emergency Services Respond to Fallen Wires
The outage has caused significant disruption, with reports of wires coming down on Church Street outside Wollongong Court. Police and firefighters have been deployed to the scene to manage the situation and ensure public safety.
Notably, Wollongong Police Station has been left without electricity, potentially affecting normal operations and emergency response capabilities until power is restored.
Separate Morning Incident Adds to Disruption
In an unrelated early morning incident, a multiple-vehicle crash occurred on the M1 Princes Motorway near New Mount Pleasant Road around 7:30am. The collision resulted in one northbound lane being closed until approximately 8am.
A woman in her 60s sustained a back injury in the crash and was transported to Wollongong Hospital with what have been described as minor injuries.
The combination of these incidents has created a challenging morning for emergency services and residents across the Illawarra region, with authorities working to restore normalcy as quickly as possible.
