Widespread power outages this week in Kalgoorlie-Boulder, the West Australian mining city famous for its historic pubs, have evoked memories of Slim Dusty's iconic tune A Pub With No Beer.
As the late country music legend mused, "There's nothing so lonesome, morbid or drear ... than to stand in the bar of a pub with no beer".
The same could be said for those pubs in Kalgoorlie-Boulder affected for extended periods by blackouts across the Goldfields on Sunday and Wednesday.
Craig Alderdice, the owner of the Kalgoorlie Hotel, known locally as Judd's, estimates his pub lost more than $12,000 in trade over the two days.
"It will probably cost us $5,000 on loss of turnover [Wednesday], and on Sunday it probably cost us $7,000 or $8,000, so it's really debilitating for us."
Businesses consider back-up supply
The blackouts, which affected more than 16,000 customers on both days, followed a prolonged outage in February on one of the hottest days of the year.
February's outage was caused by a bushfire, while this week's blackouts were blamed on issues with the transmission line between Kalgoorlie and the Collgar substation at Merredin.
Mr Alderdice said the February outage prompted him to look at installing a back-up power supply.
"We all understand that it happens from time to time, especially if a storm comes through that's no-one's fault, but it seems to be happening a lot more lately," he said.
Luciano Vecchio, the director of Hannan Street restaurant and bar De Bernales, estimated the two outages had cost his business about $8,000 in lost revenue.
He said two big functions booked for Sunday were cancelled.
Customers who were dining in the restaurant when the power went out could not use EFTPOS facilities to pay for their meals.
"The good side is that just about everyone who couldn't pay on the day came back and paid … when the power came back on," Mr Vecchio said.
"Some were paying more than what they actually purchased [to support our business]."
Mr Vecchio said he now had a back-up power supply.
"I know that there's a history of this occurring — I've actually purchased a generator to cater for any future blackouts — but I would say something definitely needs to be done," he said.
Barista Teagan Holdaway from Cafe 312 said the outages badly affected casual workers like her.
"Personally, I've lost a number of hours from the outages ... I'm not going to be able to afford to pay my bills this week," she said.
Utility apologises for outages
Western Power chief executive Sam Barbaro apologised to the Goldfields community for the inconvenience and losses to businesses, describing the outages as "completely unacceptable".
One of the biggest criticisms levelled at the state government-run utility from community and business leaders was the length of the outages and questions over why back-up generators in Kalgoorlie-Boulder were not turned on faster.
Mr Barbaro said there was a technical fault at the West Kalgoorlie substation on Sunday that would not allow the generator to come online, and the transmission line was restored in the meantime.
On Wednesday, he said there was a "communications issue" that prevented Western Power from remotely turning the back-up generator on.
Despite admitting the utility needed to do better, he said the community must understand the back-up generators were not an "instantaneous fix".
"It's a large generator; Kalgoorlie's a very large town, so it really takes some time to ramp that generator up," he said.
"What it's really there for is those longer outages. So if we think there's a five-, six- or seven-hour outage, we will turn that generator on because it will be quicker to restore people through the generator.
Amid calls for compensation for businesses, Mr Barbaro directed customers towards Western Power's website.
He said the utility was looking at ways to improve the power supply in Kalgoorlie-Boulder.
"We're always looking at how do we best supply our customers and how do we use new technologies.
"Whatever we do in Kalgoorlie needs to be fit for purpose, but we certainly are investigating the new technologies we can use and the options we've got to fix that.
"They're all longer-term strategies, and in the short term it's about making sure we maintain our network to the right standard and those generators are ready to go when we need them."
