Vandals cause outage

More than 20,000 homes and businesses were affected by last Wednesday’s power outage.

Western Power spokeswoman Miriam Borthwick said power was cut to 21,000 properties that receive power from the Bunbury Harbour Sub Station.

At first, she said, Western Power suspected lightening to have caused the blackout but further investigation by Western Power workers revealed there had been a vandalism attack on the high voltage line, which carries about 132 kilovolts.

While Ms Borthwick would not comment on the type of vandalism for fear of copycat crimes, she said the outage was "significant".

"It’s a lot of customers," she said.

"It affected a significant number of people for sure."

Western Power returned power to 6000 properties within 45 minutes and connected the remaining properties within an hour and a half.

Police put into place an emergency response plan which included increased patrols of places of high risk which include major shopping centres, chemists and banks.

The vandalism to the power line has been reported to police, according to Ms Borthwick.