Get to da choppa: mission not impossible

A flood in outback QLD. Critical fibre infrastructure. And a generator burning through its last fuel.

In recent weeks, a slow-moving tropical low stalled over north-west Queensland, dumping up to 150 mm of rain per day on country that averages 430 mm for the entire year. Creeks burst, roads went underwater, and the Flinders Highway between Julia Creek and Richmond closed entirely

One of Vocus’s network sites near Nonda – a remote locality in Richmond Shire about 600 kilometres south-east of Mount Isa – lost mains power and switched automatically to solar panels, battery storage and generator backup.

Although our backup power system worked perfectly, the bad news from the local power utility was that restoration of mains power would take some time due to the extensive flooding.

The clock was ticking

Our generators are maintained with significant fuel reserves in the tank, but with persistent cloud cover and no sun to speak of, the generator was running continuously – and the fuel gauge was dropping fast.

Floodwater had cut the two roads in. The weight of a fuel tanker on slushy ground was out of the question and using small watercraft to ferry barrels of diesel across the water wasn’t a possibility either.

The team worked the problem and reached the same conclusion Arnie did back in ’87 –get to da choppa!

Chartering a suitable helicopter wasn’t an easy task. Not every helicopter can carry fuel tanks suspended in a sling underneath them – and finding one at short notice in flood-affected north-west Queensland proved tricky.

In fact, the nearest available was in Townsville – 628 kilometres away (nearly the distance between Sydney and Melbourne).

We chartered it and one of our most experienced field technicians, Wayne, travelled to meet the pilot at the airfield.

Wayne’s report back to the Ops team monitoring from head office: “pretty stressed on the way as I watched the generator’s fuel gauge dropping but successfully refuelled it and enjoyed the very long scenic chopper flight back!”

Doing what it takes

Nonda might be a single site in a little-known part of the outback, but if we’d allowed the network running through it to go dark it could have affected connectivity to many thousands of people.

Vocus operates tens of thousands of kilometres of long-haul fibre across Australia – routes that carry traffic for many other telcos and government departments’ traffic that support essential community services.

The flood also underlined the importance of another project we already had underway – deploying another 26 generators to other sites along the route.

Our goal is straightforward: every site on that corridor will have on-site backup power in case of flood, bushfire and everything in between.

All in a week's work for the Vocus team – it's what we do to help keep Australia's critical digital infrastructure online.