Thousands of households are without power in Canterbury, as strong winds lash the region.
According to MainPower, more than 6200 homes were affected by outages in Northern Canterbury this afternoon.
“We have a large and diverse network in some very rural areas, including Hanmer Springs and around the Culverden basin, which have been particularly hard hit by today’s weather.”
MainPower said crews had been deployed across the network to make repairs as quickly as possible, but warned it may not be until tomorrow when it is safe enough to send large teams and equipment to make major repairs.
Crews were focused on getting resources to the hardest hit areas.
“We have as many people out now as we can, and we’re cracking on now that the winds have calmed a wee bit. But again, people should treat all power as live at all times. Your power at home or work may be restored at any time.
“To put this into perspective, we have more than 45,000 customers across the Waimakariri, Hurunui and Kaikōura areas – an area of more than 11,000 square kilometres. We currently have faults affecting 8,841 individual connection points. And we have 73 field staff – and they’re all very busy.”
Earlier, Network Tasman said a fault on the national grid had affected its entire network, resulting in outages across Nelson and Tasman.
In a midday updates it said “Transpower have restored supply to all areas, but warn that further outages may occur due to wild weather across the South Island”.
Nelson Hospital said it had been running on generator supply while the network was resetablished.
“A backup battery kept critical systems running during the outage, and no patients were impacted,” Health New Zealand regional director Pete Watson said.
“I want to acknowledge the efforts of staff who worked to keep patients safe during this time.”
According to Marlborough Lines’ website, most places in its region had power restored shortly after midday. Over 20,000 customers had been affected earlier this morning.
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Transpower said “good progress” had been made in restoring power, but warned further outages were possible given the severe weather.
“All national grid substations across these areas are now able to supply electricity to local lines companies, who are now in the process of gradually restoring power within their respective networks.”
Marlborough north of Cape Campbell was under an orange strong wind warning with gusts of up to 130 km/h possible, while Nelson, Tasman and parts of the West Coast were under a strong wind watch.
In Wellington, around 200 households were without power due to the winds.
Wellington Electricity said it would prioritise faults that presented a danger to public safety, as well as those safe enough for crews to work on.
“In some cases, we cannot start our restoration until the wind speed reduces to allow crews to safely work at height.
“We’ll then work on fixing smaller faults and restoring power to any individual properties that might still be without power.”
In Wairarapa, Powerco was using a break in the weather to assess damage from the air.
“Crews are continuing to reconnect customers affected by Tuesday’s high winds. As of 11am, 976 customers remain without power in Wairarapa – down from 1,700 late yesterday afternoon. The single largest outage is 427 customers in Riversdale on the eastern coast, where lines came down Tuesday morning. “
The morning’s headlines in 90 seconds, including serious weather warnings for rain and life threatening winds, more than 100,000 public sector workers on strike, and the tourism hotspots in the global travel spotlight. (Source: 1News)
