Long road

The long road to recovery has now begun.  We were back at work on Monday the 17th and the entire CBD, excluding the portion near Eagle St Pier, was up and running. 

Eagle St Pier Business , fenced off for repairs January 22 (Blackberry photo)

Clean up started right away and many businesses were able to open mid-week.  The biggest problem for most people who were not flooded, was the lack of power.  All substations in flood areas were turned off.  It depended on how many homes and businesses were connected to the substation for how quickly it was reactivated.  Our substation was in a flood zone but was not flooded and it was back on within 55 hours of being turned off.  Many substations had massive residential connections and have not yet been turned back on, for fear of electrical fires in houses that have now been damaged.  There is also a problem with apartment buildings that had flooding in the underground parking garages.  If the electrical panel and all power systems were in the garage, everything needs to be inspected and potentially replaced prior to being recertified and turned back on.  We know of many people living in apartments who had no flooding in their units, but there was either water in the substation or in their electrical systems.  They were without power for a week...a week of hot weather (+30C, finally) and no air conditioning.  We would have made for a hotel and paid for the cool!  Clearly we are not yet Australians.