Energex Update

"We're hearing you aren't out today?"

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Danny Donald from Energex, how are you.

Speaker 2 (00:02):
I'm well, thank you, So how are.

Speaker 1 (00:04):
You going At the moment we're hearing reports that you
guys aren't getting out and about today.

Speaker 2 (00:08):
You're hearing we are or aren't aren't that you're.

Speaker 1 (00:11):
Not getting out today it's deemed too dangerous.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
No, currently it is, but we're pretty sure we can.
We'll be able to start rolling some cruise a little
bit later today if the weather keeps holding off.

Speaker 3 (00:23):
Now, is that obviously you're based in Brisbane? Is that
applying for the Gold Coast?

Speaker 2 (00:29):
Yeah, it will be applying for all of southeast Quinsland.
In fact, I'm at a green tape depot south of
Brisbane and it's raining a lot here and still quite
a bit of win but it is being monitored by
the minute. But we are confident we were able to
get some cruise out there today to start making safe
and that is cutting wires and any other public risk

(00:51):
that they can attend to, and if possible we can
start doing a little bit of restoration work. But that
is a that's the biggest if. But you will see
some who is rolling today making safe and assessing the damage.

Speaker 1 (01:03):
Danny, how annoying was it for you guys in the
lead up to the cyclone to have all of those scams.
I've got a friend who works for energets and they're
saying they're going to be turning off the power to
save the grid and all that kind of stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:14):
Yeah, it is. It's really annoying, and I never know
what it is. Hey, Like, it's one person who starts it,
and I'd love to have their address, but.

Speaker 3 (01:23):
They wouldn't have any power anymore.

Speaker 2 (01:25):
No, No, that's for sure, that's for sure. But I
don't know what a single person gets from doing this
sort of thing, Because one person can, you know, cause
a lot of grief for an entire community, and that's
what they were doing. So yeah, it's frustrating for us.
And it's just an again, it's one of those things.

(01:45):
It's sort of like seeing people going down to the
big surf now and getting themselves in trouble. You just
don't understand it.

Speaker 1 (01:51):
Yeah, exactly, because there's just no truth to it at all.
You wouldn't turn it off unless it's turned off by
a tree, exactly.

Speaker 2 (01:58):
We were never going to turn off before the cyclone struck.
We want people to have power right up until they
don't have power, and that was Mother Nature's job to
switch it off. But now we're in a little bit
of a different situation where we may start to see flooding. Now,
flooding is generally the only time we will ever start

(02:19):
proactively turning off power, and that's because we certainly do
not want high voltage and water together. So that is
for holy and only public safety. But until that starts happening,
still the flooding starts eventuating, our only job now will
be switching it on.

Speaker 3 (02:40):
Right, So first to first job is to get cruise
out when it's safe to do so, and making efforts
to fix lines that are broken. And then following that
it's about restoration.

Speaker 2 (02:51):
Absolutely, it'll be critical infrastructure first, water, sewerage, hospitals, police,
ambulance stations, and then it will then we will start
on our high voltage, so that's the backbone of the network,
and then we'll start on the street by street process
of getting homes and businesses up.

Speaker 1 (03:09):
Well done, and thanks, and I also appreciated the idea
you guys actually buying advertising letting people know how to
use their generators and things like that, because a lot
of those things I didn't know so well done on that.

Speaker 2 (03:21):
No, and this is the thing, we've already had a report
of a family of four make themselves really crooked by
running a generator inside. So that's a sad situation, and
there's a lot of people their first time generator owners.
Do not run your generator inside and treat your generator
electricity as much safety respect the electricity coming out of

(03:43):
your socket to your home, because it can kill.

Speaker 1 (03:45):
Yeah. I saw someone set theirs up in a tent outside.

Speaker 2 (03:49):
Well, yeah, as long as they're not in the tent,
I'm sure that would be fine. But you do not
want to be running a generator inside to is like
sitting in your car in your garage while it's running.
You know, it can be deadly.

Speaker 1 (04:01):
No, they set it up in the tent, then the
cord into the house so that it wasn't getting wet outside.
It was I thought it was ingenious, But what do you.

Speaker 2 (04:10):
Think, Well, as long as no one's in there, yeah,
and as long as there's no chance of that generator
getting wet, because that is generating two hundred and forty volts.

Speaker 3 (04:18):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (04:19):
Okay, Well that's really important information because half of us
went and bought our very first generator Bunnings is the
people and Buddings are now going on a holiday in
the Bahamas of that many.

Speaker 2 (04:31):
Yeah, yeah, there might be a few cheap on the
marketplace in the next few weeks.

Speaker 1 (04:36):
Yeah, I did exactly the same.

Speaker 3 (04:38):
We've got them and we can get rid of them. Danny,
thanks so much for your time, and will be obviously
constantly in touch with you and your department because we'll
be keeping the Gold Coast informed.

Speaker 2 (04:50):
Lovely