The Society responded immediately to the crisis in Broken Hill and surrounding communities in mid-October, after a severe storm destroyed seven electricity transmission towers, leaving 10,000 homes and businesses without power.  

The Society assisted 850 households affected by the crisis, within three days of mobilisation. 

The Society partnered with the NSW Reconstruction Authority to provide assistance to residents in Broken Hill and surrounding communities.  

The damaged local transmission towers and network supplying power to the region left homes and businesses without power and reliant upon backup generators. 

While a large-scale back-up generator restored power to approximately 9,000 homes and businesses, an estimated 1,400 individuals remained without power several days later. 

Colleagues from the membership team travelled from Sydney to support local Conference members at the Recovery Access Point, who drew on connections within the community to assist affected households with supermarket vouchers, generator fuel and support for replenishing perishable pharmaceutical items. 

The impact caused by the power outages allowed the Society to implement our disaster response framework in a real-life scenario. The framework was developed in consultation with the Humanitarian Action Group following the 2022 floods affecting NSW. 

The NSW Government continues to investigate the outage and State-Commonwealth disaster funding has been unlocked for the Broken Hill and Central Darling Shire Local Government Areas.