Power Fails On Coldest January Day

Northern Advocate, 15 January 1948, Page 5

Power Fails On Coldest January Day

SYDNEY, Thu. (11 a.m.) Large areas of Sydney and parts of New South Wales will be without continuous electric power for at least a week as the result of a breakdown yesterday, on the coldest January day on record, of a turbine at Bunnerong Powerhouse.

The failure came at a time when raw southerly weather and high industrial demand were placing almost unprecedented strain on the state’s power system.

Power interruptions were the most widespread in Sydney’s history. The turbine affected is one of three major units at Bunnerong and the most powerful in the Southern Hemisphere. The maximum temperature recorded yesterday in Sydney was 62.9 degrees, beating the previous lowest maximum by 1.2 degi'ees. MOST WATER IN 50 YEARS

The minimum was 56.3 and 143 points of rain fell. Minor rivers have overflowed their banks and- some rivers are impassable. Snow fell over a wide area of the uplands. Despite wheat losses, pastoralists say that, on the whole, the rain is doing' much more good than harm because Australia now has more water and more good feed than at any previous time in the last 50 years. For the first time in years all the great irrigation water storages in New South Wales are nearly full.