Endeavour Energy began scheduled maintenance works at 8.30am on February 10 that required power to be cut to residents of Kangaloon Road, Kia Ora Lane and Trig Station Lane.

The Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) issued a forecast of 39 degrees for Bowral on February 20.

At 12.24pm, the BoM temperature reading for Moss Vale was 35.1 degrees.

An Endeavour Energy spokesman said the company took forecast weather into account and regularly reviewed all maintenance that required power to be interrupted.

“Our general approach is in the case of weather forecast for 40 degrees plus, scheduled works are cancelled and rescheduled. When temperatures greater than or equal to 39 are forecast, but lower than 40 degrees, we aim to have all interruptions completed by 12 noon,” he said.

However, considerations need to be made about public safety.

“The work we’re carrying out at Kangaloon is on 11 high-voltage cross arms. We have to make an assessment on the work that needs to be done to ensure there’s no risk to the public,” he said.

A Kangaloon resident said even with advance warning, high temperatures had made the outage hard to endure.

“At these temperatures, not being able to have our fridge running is just not practical.”

The resident said she had called Endeavour Energy’s customer support line, but was very frustrated when the customer assistant told her to calm down and have a drink of water.

“Well that’s a bit hard, I’m not on town water and I need power to run the pumps for it!”

The Endeavour Energy spokesman said several factors were taken into account.

“It’s a difficult decision to make, and we don’t like people to be uncomfortable. Public safety is a main concern and we have to weigh up the risks.”

Further Endeavour Energy planned outages are scheduled February 13 between 8.30am and 4pm for Kangaloon residents of Kangaloon Road, Kia Ora Lane, Trig Station Lane, Warreah Lane, Widgee Waa Lane.

UPDATE, 1.20pm:

An Endeavour Energy spokesman said works on February 10 were being adjusted to meet community expectations.

“We’re looking to restore supply about 2pm, provided the work is completed whereby we do not need to interrupt power supply to the local school again in the foreseeable future.”