Call to rethink cooling strategies after blackouts in outback WA heatwave put residents at risk

Esther Roadnight says it was difficult not being able to check if people were okay. (ABC Goldfields: Giulia Bertoglio)

Esther Roadnight spent much of Wednesday worried about her friends.

With blackouts across much of regional Western Australia, and temperatures soaring past 40C, she feared for those with illnesses and medical equipment that did not fare well in the heat in her home town of Kalgoorlie.

And with phone and internet down, the president of her Older, Wiser, Livelier Seniors group couldn’t even check on them.

“If you were ill, how are you going to get in touch with somebody? How are you going to get emergency services? How are you going to get an ambulance?” Ms Roadnight said.

“Not being able to get in touch with people is a bit scary.”

Power is being slowly restored to the outback city, after a freak storm caused catastrophic damage to the transmission infrastructure linking Kalgoorlie to the broader grid.

The power in Kalgoorlie went out on Wednesday evening, but some parts of the Wheatbelt were cut off on Tuesday.

Doug Daws from Goldfields Masonic Homes was scrambling to find generators to power the Kalgoorlie retirement village when the ABC spoke to him during the blackout.

“It’s not been good. We always try and put a brave face on it,” he said.

“But some of the old people are struggling a bit.”

A long-time community leader in the city, he said the repeated blackouts were frustrating for locals.

“We’re tired of the porky pies from Western Power, Synergy and all the other people in this mix,” he said.

“They assured us the emergency generator would be ready to fire up. That was a lie — it failed.”

Heatwaves a silent killer

Many others will share those concerns today, as temperatures in parts of WA are forecast to hit 50C and thousands of people remain without power.

Statistics show they are right to worry.

The director of the University of Sydney’s Heat and Health research incubator, Ollie Jay, said heatwaves and extreme heat were the greatest killers of all natural disasters, with people over 65 or with cardiovascular issues at the greatest risk.

Professor Jay considered summer blackouts a major public health issue.

“It’s been dubbed a silent killer,” he said.

“When we have a heatwave strike it doesn’t look visually dramatic.

“Often the people who are dying are doing so socially isolated, alone in their homes, out of the public’s view, and often these people are not found until days later.

“And they just end up as a statistic.”

But the upside, according to Professor Jay, is that heat-related death is entirely preventable.

During Kalgoorlie’s blackout on Wednesday, 20 people presented to its hospital’s emergency department with heat-related issues.

Professor Jay said that was 20 people too many.

He believed there was an increasing onus on governments to ensure citizens had the means to stay cool, particularly as climate change made extreme weather events more common.

Cooling centres often not used

Public facilities in Kalgoorlie and Northam were opened during the blackout in a bid to give vulnerable and heat-impacted residents a chance to cool off.

But Professor Jay said their effectiveness was “debatable”, as the most at-risk people were generally socially isolated, did not know about them or could not get to them.

“And if they could get to them, they often choose to not go to them because they much prefer to stay at home,” he said.

He believed one of the best strategies to keep people safe from heat would be to popularise alternatives to air conditioning.

Professor Jay said air conditioning put a massive strain on the grid, making it more susceptible to blackouts.

That appeared to be a concern yesterday, with reconnected WA residents urged to limit their power use until the grid became more stable.

Professor Jay said encouraging people to use the fan-first cooling strategy – using electric fans and only switching to air conditioning at 27C — would make a huge difference.

“You feel just as cool, you’re just as comfortable,” he said.

“But it uses about 70 per cent less electricity throughout the day to power the air conditioning units.”

But he also warned people should not be using fans once temperatures surpassed 41C as it would only make rooms hotter.

While options were more limited during a blackout, he said the best way to stay cool was to apply water directly to the skin.

Kalgoorlie residents Ty Borland and Louella Barnett appeared to have taken that advice, driving 235 kilometres north of the Goldfields capital to cool off in Malcolm Dam on Friday.

“Kalgoorlie without air conditioning is like a death sentence,” Ms Barnett said.

“You kind of feel like the early settlers who just had to sweat it out.”

The WA Country Health Service has published a list of ways for people to protect themselves from the heat.

But many people instead want assurances that a prolonged summer blackout will not happen again.