Power has been restored to the majority of homes and businesses in South Australia affected by Saturday’s storm, but 30,000 properties remain in the dark as the clean-up from the wild weather continues.
At the height of the outage, SA Power Networks said 163,000 of its customers lost power, but since then crews have made significant progress, with teams from NSW also on their way to assist.
The state was hit with wild winds, rain, thunder and lightning over the weekend, causing widespread blackouts and storm damage.
There were 423,000 lightning strikes recorded on Saturday, along with winds of 106 kilometres per hour.
Paul Roberts from SA Power Networks said most homes should have their power restored by Tuesday, but there could be some "stragglers" without power until Wednesday, particularly in the Upper Sturt area.
He said a two-kilometre power line in the Upper Sturt area would have to be rebuilt.
Mr Roberts said it was the largest outage event in SA since the statewide blackout in 2016.
"[It's] the biggest impact since we had the statewide blackout in 2016 in September, but it's going to take much longer for us to recover from this one [than] the statewide blackout," Mr Roberts said.
"Most people were back on in the evening and overnight that day, but this is where we're really having to rebuild many parts of the network which have been damaged by big trees that have fallen on lines, all sorts of damage, that requires rebuilding, not just reconnecting supply.
"The statewide blackout was essentially reorganising the supply in the network and rebuilding us back up from zero supply to be able to generate the state, whereas this is actually about rebuilding the network.
Mr Roberts said as well as damage to powerlines and infrastructure, a tower had been lost on the interconnector at Tailem Bend, meaning there was no supply coming from interstate.
Mr Roberts said the tower down at the interconnector was a separate issue to the outages throughout the state, which are being caused by damage to powerlines and poles.
"The actual issue around managing security of supply and the transmission is a separate issue to us actually having to rebuild a distribution network has been damaged," he said.
The interconnector is operated by ElectraNet.
SA Power Networks said power was cut to 160,000 customers, with 310 outages reported across the state.
Blackout forces school closures
Department of Education chief executive officer Martin Westwell said 30 public schools will be closed today due to blackouts or storm damage.
"Yesterday, we thought there would be about 50 schools out today, that was the information that we had, and we weren't sure how many would get the power back," he said.
"But some of them have, which is great, so we've got just over 30 schools that we currently understand haven't got power or have had some damage, and so they'll be closed today."
Mr Westwell said the department was working on a plan to help students continue lessons, should power remain out for an extended period of time.
He said online learning today would not be an option, as many students do not have power at home.
"I think we're hearing that, that we might still have some outages tomorrow and it might go on a little bit later in the week, but I'm sure we'll get many more schools back on," he said.
"So from 1,000 sites, preschools and schools across South Australia, we've just got 30 something out now.
"I feel for the parents to feel for the students who are not able to go to school today, but we'll try and get that number down as far as we can."
Mr Westwell said while there had been some confusion as to which schools were closed, parents and students should follow advice provided directly from their preschool or school.
He said most year 12 exams scheduled for today should be going ahead, but students affected by power outages would not have to sit their exams.
"For the vast majority of our schools, it seems to be going ahead as normal, they've got power schools running, students should go to schools, but if your school is closed, then the exam won't be running," he said.
"Of course, we can't re-run it, because you've just had hundreds of students in other schools doing that exam and being aware of questions on the on the exam paper and so it won't be re-run, those students won't do the exam, at all."
He said SACE would work those students to ensure they were not disadvantaged.
Phone services affected
SA Police said some communities in the Mid North and north of the state had lost access to Telstra services, meaning residents in those towns could not contact triple-0.
The communities affected are Booborowie, Burra, Copley, Gidgealpa, Hallet, Leigh Creek, Marree, Nepabunna and Yeelanna.
Anyone requiring medical assistance that is not able to call triple-0 is asked to attend their nearest hospital.
Anyone needing other emergency services has been told to attend their nearest police or fire station.
Senior Constable Kate Dawson said many roads across metropolitan areas were still littered with fallen trees and a number of intersections were without traffic lights due to the blackouts.
"It's wild out there and it has been for the last couple of days, which has resulted in a lot of damage to our roads and the power network across the state, so if you do need to drive today, we just ask that you take extreme care on our roads," she said.
"As well as homes and businesses, there are still many intersections with power out as well as trees, powerlines and light poles down across the road causing hazards."
SES responds to thousands of calls
State Emergency Services chief of staff Darren Halleday said crews had received 2,000 calls for help over the past 24 hours.
They included reports of damaged roofs, downed powerlines and blocked roads across the state.
Mr Halleday said about 300 jobs remained and he expected the workload would ease over the coming days.
"Much of the damage included roofs being removed, trees on buildings, trees on cars, trees on powerlines and trees on roads," he said.
"We really do thank the public for their patience, as there has been delays getting through the 132 500 numbers."
Bureau of Meteorology duty forecaster Jenny Horvat said things had settled down, but conditions were still quite wet and windy.
She said there had been nearly 50 millimetres of rain at the Mount Lofty Ranges since 9am yesterday, but the weather system that had caused the storm had moved east towards Tasmania.
"We should start to see some easing of conditions during the later part of today," she said.
Blackout 'costing businesses millions'
South Australia's Energy Minister Tom Koutsantonis said power outages over the weekend and this morning would have cost businesses millions of dollars, due to a disruption of services and food wastage.
He said the government would look to see that insurance claims were paid out to business owners.
He said there was some scope for converting power line systems to underground.
Mr Roberts said businesses and households would not be eligible for compensation as SA Power Networks could not be held responsible for the storm damage.
But he said there was a scheme in place that would see people automatically paid for the inconvenience of the blackout.
"People are paid for the inconvenience of long duration outages and the payments sort of stretched depending on the length of the outages between $100 and $300 they're automatically credited," he said.
"My guess is that many people, in fact, most people will be getting at least $200 to $300 in payment for that inconvenience and when you consider the average, the distribution component of the average bill, which is about 30 per cent of the bill about $570, that's quite a significant payment for people."
