nbn Tropical Cyclone Debbie response and recovery update

nbn’s Emergency Management and Field teams have been working around the clock to manage the impacts of Severe Tropical Cyclone Debbie to ensure the least disruption possible to the operation of our network.

Since the initial impact of Severe Tropical Cyclone Debbie in the Bowen, Mackay and Whitsunday region, we have seen significant flooding throughout South East Queensland, Northern New South Wales and Rockhampton.

In total the loss of access to the nbn™ network peaked at around 12,500 end users impacted across Queensland and Northern New South Wales.

Ergon reports that as at 8am today, 7,600 premises remained without power in the initial impact zone around the Whitsunday coast. Sixty-six nbn infrastructure sites are affected by these outages, impacting approximately 1800 services in the region.

nbn reminds residents and businesses that equipment connected over the nbn™ network will not work during a power blackout, so while our services may be operational, if you do not have power in your home you will be unable to access nbn™ services.

In South East Queensland one nbn™ Fibre-to-the-Node cabinet has been impacted by flooding, effecting 16 services. These services are expected to be restored today.

In Northern New South Wales, the Tygalgah Fixed Wireless site requires a cabinet replacement due to inundation and is presently unable to be accessed due to conditions. Three hundred and sixty eight services are currently impacted by this. Work to restore these services is expected to start on Sunday 9 April.

In Rockhampton, flooding has reached 8.9m and is expected to take 48 hours to recede. No infrastructure damage or inundation has been identified as yet in Rockhampton. Twenty-five services are currently impacted due to power outages.

All up across Queensland and Northern New South Wales, three fixed wireless cabinets and one node have been identified as impacted by the event and require full replacement.

nbn is working as quickly as possible to restore all services.

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