Perth Airport has announced a thorough review of backup generation systems that failed to stop a major power outage sparked by bad weather from causing widespread flight cancellations and delays.
Power was restored to Perth Airport late last night after the severe weather, brought about by a once-in-a-year triple storm front hitting Western Australia, saw all outbound services scheduled to depart before 8:30pm grounded.
Check-ins, security screening and car park access were also affected, with passengers reportedly told to go home for the night and contact their travel agents.
The airport has revealed about 29 flights were affected by the outage.
Perth Airport chief executive Kevin Brown said generators that supported critical safety systems such as the runway lighting worked as intended and kept the runway operating, allowing planes to land safely.
But the backup generation system that provided power to the terminals failed, leaving only two terminals with minimum power.
Airport apologises, asks for patience
Mr Brown said an immediate review would look into what went wrong, down to the hour, and what could have been done better.
"These backup systems are checked on a monthly basis and that's why I want to know why these generators didn't function as intended last night," he told ABC Radio Perth.
"I know that this caused a lot of inconvenience to people and that's why I want to make sure that we don't see a repeat of this in the future."
Mr Brown apologised to passengers for the inconvenience, with the airport asking passengers for their "continued patience" as it worked to get flights back underway.
He said around 30 flights were impacted on Tuesday night and difficulties continued into Wednesday.
"There's some ongoing disruptions that come from that naturally, just with the complexity of all the flights that had to be rescheduled," he said.
"Our first priority was the safety of passengers and workers in our terminals.
"The teams have been working all night with our airline partners to get the schedule back on its feet as quickly as possible, and many flights are operating today, but there is still some ongoing impact."
Passengers left angry and distressed
But some travellers who were left stranded last night have slammed airport management for a lack of communication.
"[It] was an absolute circus at Perth Airport," one passenger, Chris, told ABC Radio Perth.
"It was freezing cold last night, they could have come around and offered us a blanket.
"The communication was absolutely pathetic … nobody came to address us."
Another traveller, Jane, was left distressed after her non-stop flight to England to see her terminally ill mum was cancelled.
"I thought maybe there'll be a delay because of the storm [but] we didn't know what was going on … the doors were open, the power was off, it was freezing cold," she told ABC Radio Perth.
"The federal police that were there were really helpful in saying 'get this woman on the plane, she's got to go to her mum, she's got a boarding pass, she's got no luggage,' but they wouldn't let me on because of the internet not working."
"You could buy beer, you could buy hamburgers, but you couldn't get on a plane … they actually said to us, 'just go and buy some food before we run out'."
Storm damages homes, downs trees
The airport was one of thousands of properties left without power across Perth as the first of three powerful cold fronts battered the state.
Damaging winds continued as the third front crossed the South-West on Wednesday, but were set to ease by the evening as they move towards South-East parts of the state on Thursday.
At the peak of the storm yesterday morning, Western Power said 35,000 customers were without electricity, but it has since been restored to more than 21,000 properties.
A Western Power spokesperson said about 13,200 homes and businesses were still without power on Wednesday afternoon – 11,000 in the metro area and 2,200 in regional areas in the South-West of the state.
"We understand the frustration and inconvenience this has caused, particularly for those who were without power overnight," the spokesperson said.
"All available crews are out on the network today working in challenging conditions and while we're working to restore power as safely and quickly as possible, there may be some homes and businesses that experience an extended outage due to continuing forecasted poor weather conditions today."
The wild weather is set to continue, with damaging winds averaging 65 kilometres per hour and peak gusts in excess of 100 kph likely along the west coast and Perth this morning, before conditions ease during the late afternoon.
Heavy showers and thunderstorms are also expected to persist throughout the day.
A severe weather warning for damaging surf is also in place, with significant wave heights exceeding 7 metres already occurring in exposed locations.
Swell forecasts of over 9.5 metres are predicted to hit Rottnest Island and Cape Naturaliste today.
A severe warning for damaging surf is current from Dongara to Albany, but the swell is expected to ease during Thursday.
Rainfall totals are expected to reach between 15 and 25mm near the coast between Lancelin and Albany by the end of Wednesday.
More cold fronts will move over the South-West on Sunday and Monday but are forecast to be much weaker.
Mosque damaged by falling tree
The storm yesterday morning uprooted a large tree that fell onto the main prayer hall of the Canning Mosque in Queens Park, one of the oldest mosques in WA.
Significant damage was caused to the roof, structural beams, perimeter and boundary walls of the Suleymaniye Mosque, while the main hall was also flooded, causing substantial damage to everything inside.
In a statement, the Turkish Islamic Association of WA said the property was insured but the damages bill was expected to be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
A GoFundMe campaign has been launched to raise funds to rebuild the mosque, with more than $45,000 already raised.
"Any amount donated will make a difference and together we can restore our Mosque to the place that has served our community for nearly 40 years," the statement said.
