Traffic waits as crews tidy up in Parkes. Photo: Lucy Ridge.
The high winds buffeting Canberra have brought down power lines and trees across the national capital, leaving hundreds of households without power and roads blocked.
An Emergency Services Agency spokesperson said the State Emergency Services had received dozens of requested for help, with almost every suburb impacted.
By late this afternoon it had responded to 72 requests for help and completed only 10 of them. Crews were expected to be working into the night.
SES and Fire and Rescue crews were attending incidents, many of which were for fallen trees.
“There’s not been any reports of any serious injuries but we have had several incidents that have involved trees falling on to cars and on to roadways and driveways,” the spokesperson said.
The entire Territory had been affected and there was no one area that had suffered worse than another.
Evoenergy reported outages in Belconnen, Mitchell, Ainslie, the City, Lyneham, O’Connor, Downer, Kaleen, Gungahlin, Bruce, Florey, Hawker, Latham, Page, Scullin, Weetangera, Deakin, and Curtin.
Power had been restored to hundreds of customers but there were still hundreds more affected, including more than 400 in the northern suburbs. Power would not be restored in some areas until late tonight or early morning.
The outages forced CIT Bruce to cancel its afternoon and evening classes.
The Bureau of Meteorology said the Canberra region had been hit by westerly winds averaging 50km/h, gusting up to 80km/h.
The winds are expected ease into the evening.
