08/05/2026
Flashback Friday to January 2020 – when savage winds tore through south-western Victoria and brought down six giant transmission towers near Cressy! 🌪️
Another two heavily damaged in scenes that looked more like a war zone than a paddock.
The collapse disrupted the Heywood interconnector between Victoria and South Australia, triggered widespread blackouts, and even affected the Portland aluminium smelter – one of the state’s biggest power users.
Around 20,000 properties across Victoria were hit by outages as the network struggled through extreme heat, storms, and demand pressure.
Authorities blamed wind gusts of up to 122 km/h, but the images left plenty of people questioning just how strong these towers really are.
For infrastructure that communities are constantly told is “critical” and “future-proof,” seeing multiple structures folded into the dirt by one weather event didn’t exactly inspire confidence.
Many modern transmission towers are built as cheaply as possible, with components and materials often sourced overseas – including from China – raising ongoing concerns around quality, durability, and long-term reliability.
The final repair bill reportedly blew out to around $25 million, all while locals were left staring at twisted steel scattered across farmland and wondering how infrastructure this important could fail so spectacularly. 🤔
