REDLAND City Council is urging the state government to urgently repair a circuit breaker feeding power to Redlands Coast islands and investigate alternative power options to ensure power supply in the future.
Redland City Mayor Karen Williams highlighted the vulnerability of the islands after they lost power earlier this month.
"A faulty circuit breaker resulted in the islands losing power and council has been told it could take up to six months to repair the problem," Cr Williams said.
"Having limited power redundancy in the lead up to fire and storm season is concerning so we are urging the state government to move quickly to remedy the situation.
"While Energy Queensland moved quickly to return power to the islands, a fault on the remaining power supply line to the islands resulted in power again being lost the following day, with no back-up supply due to strong winds making it difficult to transport generators on barges," she said.
Energex spokesman Danny Donald said there were two major powerlines on the islands.
"The islands already have a second power redundancy with a power supply no different to the main land.
"What happened earlier this month was a rare occurrence. While repairing one line, the second line had a fault and went down... lightning marks and wind had weakened the line," he said.
He said Energex was currently working on rebuilding the line and it would take a couple of months. Generators are on the islands as a back-up for residents.
Cr Williams said the outages highlighted the vulnerability of the aged residents on the islands, making access to power and water even more important.
"For most residents losing water or power is inconvenient, but for our isolated island communities it can be dangerous," she said.
