On Tuesday 22 August, the entirety of Coonabarabran’s power was turned off. Rather than stay inside, it became an opportunity for the community to gather together ‘lighten the load’ after a challenging weekend.

“The idea literally popped into my head the night before,” said Kodi Brady, Chairperson of the Coonabarabran Suicide Prevention Network. 



Following two deaths in the community, Mr Brady thought the power outage was an apt time for locals to connect under the sun. 

“I just thought, what else are people doing tomorrow? Why don’t we go to the park, light a fire and just catch up?”

“People don’t know what to say or do. It gave a reason to come out and socialise without any sort of expectation,” Mr Brady said. 

The impromptu event drew between forty and fifty people. 

The beautification of the river set the perfect scene for connecting. (Supplied)

“We shared a feed and cuppa. We didn’t share anything too heavy, but just took the opportunity to have some conversation and some connection with each other.”

“There were actually some new people to the town that had a chance to meet some locals, and there were even some travellers that called in and thought ‘this looks nice’ and had a cuppa and a piece of cake.”

With the black out around town meaning that several shops, offices, and even one school was closed, the day left little opportunity for people to be alone. 

“Our main aim as a committee is to try to put on events just to give people a reason to come out and socialise and just lighten the load.”

IMAGE: Essential Energy

Essential Energy's Operational Manager for the Northern Tablelands, Mark Summers, said there were two unrelated outages that affected customers in the Coonabarabran area on Tuesday.

"On Tuesday, 22 August, approximately 3,900 customers in Coonabarabran and surrounds were affected by an unplanned power outage while Essential Energy crews completed urgent repairs to the electricity network," Mr Summers said. 

"Supply was isolated to the area at 9.00am on Tuesday morning to enable Essential Energy crews to safely carry out repairs to the 66kv powerline from Dunedoo to Coonabarabran. Supply was restored to customers 11.00am."

"An unrelated unplanned power outage also occurred on Tuesday evening, affecting 176 customers in Binnaway and surrounding areas."

"Network protection equipment operated to isolate supply to the area at approximately 6.00pm after detecting a fault on the high voltage electricity network.

"Essential Energy crews discovered a broken cross arm located on Leaders Road, Binnaway was the cause of the power outage. Crews secured the safety of the site, repaired the damaged electricity network and restored supply to all customers by 11.17pm."

Customers are encouraged to report a power outage on 13 20 80 or visit essentialenergy.com.au/outages for updates.