Wet and windy weather lashes South West

More than 31mm of rain has fallen in Bunbury since 4.30pm yesterday as a cold front swept across the South West.

Wind gusts built to 76kmh at their peak early this morning in Bunbury while they reached as high as 100kmh at the Busselton Jetty weather station.

The high winds saw more than 9500 homes impacted by the power outages across the State at the peak of the storm, according to a Western Power spokesman.

The spokesman said crews were being challenged by large volumes of small outages affecting customers spread out over areas throughout the Great Southern and South West.

“A total of around 2000 customers are experiencing storm-related outages in an area that stretches from Harvey through to Margaret River, across to Katanning and down to Albany,” he said.

“So far our crews are reporting that the majority of outages that they are attending are being caused by debris such as tree branches being blown into the network and restoration has been able to be achieved once the debris is safely removed and the line inspected for other damage.”

As of 8:30am this morning, outages in Gelorup, the Ferguson Valley, Lowden, Harvey, Cookernup and Waroona were highlighted on Western Power’s online outage map.

Anyone who sees damage to the network such as a fallen powerline should report it to Western Power by calling 13 13 51 and stay at least 8m clear of the hazard.