Nearly 10,000 Victorian homes remain without power after devastating storms

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Nearly ten thousand homes remain without power five days after the devastating storms that swept across Victoria. As the repairs to damaged powerlines and poles continues, the major clean up still has a long way to go.

Transcript

00:00 The clean-up has started at Jodie Gilmore's Merbou North home, but she's still without

00:06 power almost a week after storms ripped through the region.

00:10 We are lucky that friends of ours had a spare generator.

00:13 It came out of nowhere.

00:15 It was the scariest thing I've lived through.

00:18 I know it never happens again.

00:20 In Merbou North, countless trees and power lines remain on the ground and the SES is

00:25 warning of ongoing risks, responding to dozens of new calls for assistance.

00:30 And it's likely that the clean-up will take significant time.

00:34 In Melbourne's outer east, the power may be back on, but the trail of destruction left

00:40 by the storm remains.

00:42 I never thought this European Himalayan cedar would ever, ever fall the way it did.

00:47 I never thought this would happen.

00:49 Resident Jan Sigmund says he's frustrated at his insurance company for the slow clean-up.

00:54 No wood has been removed from the property whatsoever.

00:57 Nothing is complete, it's just been started.

00:59 So that's annoying.

01:00 Firing up the barbecue, Premier Jacinta Allen thanking local SES volunteers for their hard

01:05 work.

01:06 This has been the busiest unit in the state.

01:09 While clean-up efforts will take some time yet, patience is running out with the ongoing

01:13 power outages.

01:14 Many people, whether they're in the orange uniforms, the greens or the blue, they have

01:20 been saying that they've not seen anything like this.

01:23 Five days on and the damage caused by last week's storms is still very clear to see.

01:28 There are trees downed along entire stretches of road, making for a long and arduous clean-up.

01:33 The clean-up's also continuing in Pomona, where authorities today confirmed the loss

01:38 of another home in last week's bushfires, bringing the total to 45 properties lost.

01:43 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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