"I have never seen anything like it...not like this."
That was how Westonia resident Ash Geier described the battering of storms over the past five days that has left most of the small Wheatbelt community without power.
The power has only been on periodically since Sunday and after resuming for about an hour yesterday afternoon, is still off this morning, forcing everyone to run generators to keep their food from being spoiled.
He said the current advice for when the power would return was "unknown".
"The biggest thing yesterday, the power went down and the Telstra towers out here don't have a big enough backup, so all the phone lines went out, so we had no phone lines at all," Mr Geier said.
"For emergencies, you can't ring anyone up.
"People couldn't get fuel because the new fuel station is all 'tap and go' because the phone line was down and you couldn't get fuel for generators or anything.
"I had to siphon fuel out of my grader (to power the generator)."
Mr Geier said there were a lot of trees and power poles down right across the shire.
He also said there were people in town who don't have generators and they would have to throw out a lot of food.
"Today is the day where it has defrosted and going off, but in our little community everyone is trying their hardest to help each other out and moving food around and trying to fill up everyone else's freezers and other fridges that are on the go," Mr Geier said.
The first storm front which hit Westonia last Friday did not affect power supplies, however storms every day from Sunday to Wednesday did, delivering about 55 millimetres of rain.
"That one yesterday that come through, that dropped 15mm in about three minutes, water ran everywhere and a bit of water ran into dams, but again you have got be underneath that cloud," he said.
"On Tuesday up near Echo Valley Road, six power poles went over up there and across the road and trees were down everywhere and it happened up there again yesterday."
He couldn't recall a time where a thunderstorm everyday cut power supplies.
When the power eventually returns, Mr Geier said he was most likely going to leave the generator on stand-by.
"I am just going to leave mine plugged in, because as soon as the cloud comes over the hill I know we are going to lose power again," he said.
Many local residents were frustrated when all phone services dropped out, meaning businesses could not function and even basic phone calls could not be made.
At the moment, there is nothing but blue sky overhead for Mr Geier, but given the battering they have received in recent days, he is not convinced the storms are over.
"I just had a look at the old long range forecast it doesn't show any rain or thunderstorms here for the next 10 days, so we will see what happens," he said.
Mr Geier said it would be a challenging time for repair crews to fix the power poles, with some of them in very boggy areas, limiting vehicle access.
Darren O'Dea
Everyone has a story to tell. Tell me yours.
Everyone has a story to tell. Tell me yours.
