What To Do During a Power Outage on the Gold Coast

Byron Knight, Licensed Electrical Contractor

QLD Lic. 1511406 · 20+ years’ experience · Gold Coast & SEQ · Updated August 2026

The first question in an outage isn’t what to do. It’s whose problem it is. Everything after that depends on the answer, and people routinely get it wrong in both directions: sitting in the dark for six hours waiting on a network crew when the fault is inside their own switchboard, or calling me out at 11pm for something a storm did to a street three suburbs away.

Here’s how to tell the difference in about ninety seconds, what to do while the power’s off, and what’s worth checking when it comes back.

The first two minutes

1. Look outside. Are your neighbours dark? Streetlights out? That’s a network outage and it isn’t yours.
2. Check your switchboard. Main switch still on? Any safety switch or breaker tripped down? If something has tripped, the fault is on your side of the meter.
3. Check the Outage Finder. Energex publishes known outages and estimated restoration times, and it works on a phone with mobile data.
4. Report it. Lost supply goes to Energex on 13 62 62, any time of day. If nobody reports it, a small outage can sit unnoticed.
5. Then start switching things off. More on why below, because this is the step that saves equipment.

Is it the network, or is it you?

The middle rows are the ones worth knowing, because they’re not outages at all. If only part of the property is dead, start with no power in one room or power points not working but lights on. If a safety switch won’t stay in, why a safety switch keeps tripping explains what it’s found. All three are fault finding jobs rather than something to wait out.

On distance, the Electrical Safety Office is specific: if a powerline falls, stay at least 10 metres away and call 000. Treat every fallen or damaged line as live, because there is no way to tell by looking, and a line that’s dead now can be re-energised without warning.

What to switch off, and why it matters most when the power returns

The damage in an outage usually happens at the end of it, not during. Supply coming back can arrive with a surge, and everything in the house tries to start at once.

So: turn off and unplug what you can manage without. Air conditioners, computers, TVs, anything with a motor or a circuit board. Energex’s own advice to businesses is to switch off water pumps and three phase motors associated with air conditioning plant and lifts, and the logic is identical in a house, just smaller.

Leave one light switched on. It’s the simplest way to know the power is back without walking to the board, and it stops you resetting things at 3am for no reason.

The fridge and the freezer

Queensland Health’s guidance is worth knowing before you start opening doors to check. A closed refrigerator keeps food cold for about four hours. A freezer will usually hold for at least 24 hours, provided the door stays shut. Food that has thawed should not be refrozen. Keep it cold and eat it soon, or bin it.

The practical version: decide what you need out of the fridge, get it in one trip, and then leave both doors alone. Every check costs you time off the clock.

Your solar won’t run the house, and almost nobody expects that

This catches out plenty of people who bought solar partly for storm season. Worth checking what your system actually does before the next one rather than during it.

One more thing about panels in an outage, and it matters most in a storm. Energex warns that solar panels continue to produce electricity when the mains power is disconnected. The grid being down does not make the array dead. If the system or the roof is damaged, treat it as live and keep clear.

Generators: the mistake that kills line workers

If you run a generator, two rules matter more than the rest, and Energex states both of them directly.

Run it outside only, and away from windows, including your neighbours’. Fuel-burning generators produce carbon monoxide, which Energex describes as colourless, odourless, and able to reach life-threatening concentrations before being noticed. There is no early warning with this one, which is exactly what makes it dangerous.

And never connect a generator to your wiring through a power point or a makeshift lead. Energex is unambiguous: doing so can feed power back into the network, with the potential to give life-threatening shocks to you, your family, your neighbours, anyone standing near fallen powerlines, and the emergency crews working to restore your supply. Their position on the safe method is equally clear, that the only way to safely connect a generator to a home or business wiring is to have an isolating switch installed by a licensed electrical contractor. That’s an installation to arrange before storm season, not something to improvise during one.

If someone in the house depends on power

Register with your electricity retailer or Energex if anyone at the property uses life support equipment. Energex takes registrations on 1300 659 869, and there’s a medical confirmation form a doctor signs.

Now the honest part, because most articles skip it. Energex states directly that being registered does not guarantee uninterrupted power supply or prioritised restoration. Registration gets you notifications and planned interruption warnings. It does not put a crew at your door first. That’s exactly why their advice to registered customers is about preparation: know your equipment’s battery runtime, keep medication and oxygen stocked, know which hospital you’d go to and how you’d get there. Treat the registration as information, not as protection.

Businesses, strata and anything with a lift

Commercial buildings have failure modes a house doesn’t.

Emergency and exit lighting should carry the escape routes on battery, which is the entire reason it gets tested, and an outage is when you find out whether that testing has actually been happening. If fittings were flashing faults before the outage, they were telling you this was coming: see why an emergency exit light flashes and emergency and exit lighting maintenance.

Lifts, water pumps and three phase plant should be switched off during the outage and brought back deliberately rather than all at once on restoration. In a body corporate building, the common property side of that is the committee’s problem, not an individual owner’s, which is the split covered in body corporate versus unit owner responsibilities. If you manage buildings, having a strata and body corporate electrician who already knows your boards is worth more at 2am than any phone list.

When the power comes back

Restore in stages. Fridges and freezers first, then the rest, and leave heavy loads like air conditioning until last so everything isn’t starting simultaneously.

Then walk the board. If a safety switch won’t reset now that supply is back, something on that circuit was damaged and needs finding, not forcing. If anything smells hot, looks scorched, or buzzes after restoration, isolate that circuit and call. Storm-related surges are also a common trigger for faults that show up days later, so if the house feels different afterwards, get it looked at. On older boards, a switchboard inspection after a rough storm season is time well spent, and RCD testing confirms the protection still trips at the right time rather than just clicking when pressed.

Overhead supply and mature trees are the usual culprits around the hinterland edges, so properties out through Nerang and Mudgeeraba tend to see more of this than the beachside strip, where more of the network sits underground.

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