On September 28, 2016, no-one knew the entire state of South Australia would be plunged into darkness, but everyone knew a massive storm was on the way.
Heading north, the ABC’s Tom Fedorowytsch hit the road with camera operator Stephen Opie.
“We were on Port Wakefield Road, and you could just see massive clouds in front of us,” he said.
“When we hit it, there was just driving, constant rain.”
Tom Fedorowytsch travelled to South Australia’s Mid North during the 2016 storms. (ABC News)
After a few GPS mishaps, the pair landed in the Mid North town of Blyth.
“It was almost like a war zone, with roofs ripped off,”
he said.
“The roof of the church had been ripped off.”
It was there that locals showed Tom and Steve a video they’d filmed. It showed tornadoes tearing through the region, leaving a path of destruction in their wake.
The tornadoes had twisted massive power pylons like pipe-cleaners, setting in motion a sequence of events that would eventually turn the lights off across the state.
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The statewide blackout would have consequences that reverberated through the national energy market and had serious ramifications locally.
Businesses had to throw away refrigerated stock, slag solidified in the Port Pirie smelter’s blast furnace, and backup generators failed at Flinders Medical Centre.
The Flinders failure meant intensive care patients had to be urgently relocated, while families going through IVF lost embryos that were stored there.
But for Tom and Steve, and most people in South Australia, those wide-ranging consequences still weren’t clear.
They spent a long day filming in the rain, and when they finally reached Port Pirie, where they were to stay the night, it was dark and powerless.
“We got in quite late and nothing was open. There was nowhere to get food and we couldn’t even get into our motel rooms,”
Tom said.
Their only refuge was the local ABC bureau, where there was still power thanks to a generator.
Then ABC local manager the late Sarah Tomlinson came to the rescue with tinned soup and toast for a makeshift dinner cooked in the office kitchen.
Tom Fedorowystch had a soup and toast dinner during the blackout. (ABC News: Tom Fedorowystch)
After dinner, Tom and Steve finally made it to their motel rooms and spent a largely sleepless night as the storm raged outside.
The next day, power was back on in Adelaide and some regional areas, but many parts of the state remained in the dark, and the crisis was far from over.
Like many South Australians, Tom and Steve couldn’t get fuel; they had to swap their car for one of the Port Pirie ABC bureau’s cars.
The rain hadn’t stopped; roads were flooded and closed, but perhaps the most challenging aspect was the lack of communications.
Smartphones had already become an essential reporting tool, but with phone towers down, many areas were blacked out.
One of several collapsed transmission towers near Melrose in South Australia’s Mid North in September 2016. (ABC News: Tom Fedorowytsch)
Meanwhile, Tom and Steve were still on the road on the other side of the floods, with exclusive pictures of the power lines toppled and twisted by the tornadoes.
It quickly became clear the most serious consequences of the blackout were being felt on the Eyre Peninsula, where it was taking days to bring power back online.
There were even fears Port Lincoln could run out of water because pumps required to get supplies to the city could lose power.
Jay Weatherill flew to Port Lincoln and met with an emergency committee in the days after the 2016 statewide blackout. (ABC News: Nick Harmsen)
Then-premier Jay Weatherill jumped on a plane to speak to locals and quell fears.
The ABC’s political reporter Nick Harmsen joined him and, on arrival, realised how bad the situation was.
There was no mobile coverage, and calls could only be made via satellite phone. Nick called the newsroom and asked for the satellite news gathering (SNG) truck to be sent over.
With fears the regional city could run out of water, Nick’s advice was that the SNG operator should bring cash and water with him.
Large hailstones were collected during the 2016 storms. (ABC News)
It was a call that might regularly be made in war zones or very remote areas, but one that was remarkable for a reporter covering events in a major regional centre.
The ABC’s Dean Faulkner made the drive, and Nick was able to cross live, despite a lack of mobile coverage.
That evening Nick and Dean were recording at the Port Lincoln airport when a reporter from a rival media outlet touched down.
His hire car wasn’t there. It had been booked online, but with no internet access in Port Lincoln, no-one at that end knew about it.
And with no mobile coverage, there was no-one to call for help, so he instead hitched a ride into town with Nick and Dean.
For all the work reporters, crews and studio staff put in, on the night of the blackout, the sad truth is that not many people would have seen the news.
With television not an option, the ABC streamed its 7pm news online, but with mobile phones going dead, even there the audience wasn’t large.
Ratings recorded zeros across the board.
But an older technology stood up to the challenge. Official emergency broadcaster ABC Radio kept people informed across the state on battery-powered radios.
And the premier wound the clock back many decades by regularly speaking on radio to keep the public informed and reassured about the situation.
A vital service when more modern forms of communication were struggling.