Town centre succumbs to power outage

Little Gallery Cafe staff member Mackenzie Furness was among many left scratching their heads at a power outage on Tuesday morning. Picture: JESS BAKER

By Dominique Tassell

The Warwick town centre suffered a large blackout on Tuesday 29 June, impacting local businesses for almost two hours.

Businesses including the post office, QCWA, Little Gallery Café, Suncorp, Samios, and Toy Workx were affected by the blackout.

A representative from Little Gallery Café said they have a regular table of 12 on Tuesday mornings, who they had to turn away due to the blackout.

The morning rush is one of the café’s busiest times, so the impact of the blackout was large.

The QCWA on Grafton Street said they got their power back at 11.20am, and went almost two hours without any.

They also said the street lights on the corner of Albion Street and Grafton Street were out for a period of time.

A small crowd had gathered outside the post office, waiting to access the building once the power came back on. They seemingly maintained quite a line for the rest of the day.

The Suncorp on Palmerin Street was affected, with the ATM down and the store shut down during the blackout.

A staff member said there were “a few people scratching their heads wondering what was going on”.

Jodie from ISIS Beauty and Day Spa said that the blackout was a “pain in the ass”, and that she had to work hard the rest of the day to make back the money she’d lost as a result.

A staff member at the Toy Workx said that it was surprising how random the outage appeared to be, with some businesses retaining power while others didn’t.

A representative from Ergon said that the blackout had been triggered by the grid’s protection system, similar to a safety switch.

It is estimated that around 42 Warwick customers were affected by the blackout.

The Ergon representative said emergency repairs were required, and a crew was on site working on it and trying to find out if there was a problem.

They were reportedly looking at a substation in the area.

It is unclear where the problem was location, however workers were seen outside St Mark’s street on Grafton Street.