Right now, in this order
Stay clear of the person and the fault
Don't touch anyone who may still be in contact with electricity. Call 000.
Main switch off, only if it's dry and safe
If the meter box is wet, smoking or sparking, or you'd be standing in water to reach it, leave it and keep away.
Ring the right number
Fire or injury: 000. Fallen lines, a tingle from a tap, or the street out: Energex. A tree on the roof or storm damage to the house: the SES on 132 500.
Leave wet or scorched gear off
Nothing that's been under water, or smells burnt, goes back on until a licensed electrician has checked it.
What Brisbane's storms and floods do to the power
Supercells bring lines down
The storm of 27 November 2014 brought gusts up to 144 km/h and more than 614 power lines down. At one stage 108,000 homes and businesses had no electricity.
Hail and long outages
The Halloween hailstorms of 31 October 2020 left 95,000 homes across south-east Queensland without power.
Cyclone rain
Alfred's rain in March 2025 gave Brisbane its wettest day in 51 years, and over the whole event, upwards of 500,000 people in south-east Queensland and northern NSW were without power for a time.
Creeks flood too
In 2022, north-side creeks beat their records even though the river peaked lower than in 2011. Look up your address on Council's Flood Awareness Map, which shows creek, river, overland flow and storm tide risk.
Restoring power takes time
Across the 2010 to 2011 floods and Cyclone Yasi, Energex restored power to 250,000 homes and businesses. After a big event, look at Energex's Outage Finder first, because the fault may not be yours at all.
Water through the house: the power stays off
If floodwater or storm water has reached power points, the switchboard or appliances, leave the main switch off and stay out of wet rooms while anything could be live. Have a licensed electrician check the wiring and everything that got wet before the power goes back on, even if it all looks dry.
When it's yours to fix, not Energex's
If the neighbours have power and you don't, look at the switchboard. A tripped safety switch that resets and stays on may just be one faulty appliance, so pull the plugs on that circuit and try the switch once. If it won't stay on, or nothing has tripped, that's an electrician's job, or Energex's if the supply is the problem.
Queensland's rule against installation work in homes with no safety switch on the power points has exceptions, and an emergency is one of them. An electrician can make an urgent fault safe even in an older house, then talk to you about the safety switch afterwards.
Only part of the house dark? Power out in one room or half the house walks through the likely causes.
Sending us an urgent job
We're a referral service, not a 24-hour line. Choose Something's not working, then Today, it's urgent, and we'll pass it to one licence-checked Brisbane electrician who does fault work, if we have one near you. We can't promise how quickly they'll call, so anything dangerous goes to 000 or Energex first.
What's safe for you to do
You can
- Switch off at the main switch if you can reach it without touching anything wet.
- Reset a tripped safety switch once, with that circuit's appliances unplugged.
- Check Energex's Outage Finder when the street goes dark.
- Keep the SES number handy through storm season.
Leave to a licensed electrician
- A safety switch that trips again straight away.
- Scorch marks, buzzing or heat at a power point or the board.
- Anything wet from a flood or a leaking roof.
- A tingle from a tap or appliance, once Energex has ruled out the supply.
Before the next storm
Before storm season starts in November, we'd save both Energex numbers, show everyone in the house where the main switch is, and look the property up on Council's Flood Awareness Map. When a storm does hit, Energex gets anything on the street, and an electrician gets anything inside that got wet.
Want a specialist to sort it?
Tell us the job and your postcode. We match the licence-checked local electrician who does this kind of work, and they call you. No ring-around, and your number goes to them alone.