The cause of this morning’s massive blackout in inner northern Melbourne has finally been revealed, and as it turns out it’s a nightmare not even Mem Fox could’ve predicted.
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Around 4,300 homes across Coburg, Essendon, Heidelberg, Northcote, and Preston lost power at around 7:00am this morning, right as the morning peak hour hit. The power outage had on-flow effects to signalling equipment near Thornbury, causing major train delays on the Mernda line.
⚠️ Mernda line: Major delays due to an external loss of power affecting signalling equipment near Thornbury.
Check platform displays and listen for announcements as services may be altered at short notice. pic.twitter.com/mMDaNUElKP
— Metro Trains (@metrotrains) April 2, 2019
As it turns out, the culprit responsible for the blackout was a one lone possum, would you even believe.
Power supplier Jemena confirmed that the wee possum somehow managed to knock out power to a vast swathe of Melbourne’s north this morning, though they are yet to ascertain just exactly how it got that done.
We are yet to pinpoint exactly what the possum did, however (it) caused a feeder to short-circuit.
Sometimes this can be from them creating incomplete electricity networks via their bodies, sometimes they damage infrastructure by attempting to move it.
Unfortunately for those of you wishing for some sort of miracle escape for the nefarious little fiend, the possum wound up dead. Extremely, extremely, all-encompassingly dead. Soz mates.
Jemena officials confirmed that all power had been restored to the affected areas by 9:05am.
