Power finally restored for last Auckland families nearly two weeks after storm

Sunday, 22 April 2018

Kasha Klee and her young family were one of the last to have electricity restored after a storm knocked out power to 180,000 dwellings Auckland-wide.

After 11 days without power following a massive storm, a West Auckland woman is finally celebrating with a hot shower.

Kasha Klee's Kelston house was one of just five throughout the region still without electricity on Saturday, due to gale-force winds that battered the city on April 10.

About 180,000 properties were affected in total, and lines company Vector described it as the worst network damage in a decade.

Relief finally came on Saturday, when Klee's neighbour told her there was a linesman working near their house, and by 6pm the family was overjoyed to receive word that power had been restored.

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The storm uprooted trees which crushed cars and roofs and downed power lines.

* Vector tells customers to stop using app**

Klee said her situation became so dire, she and her partner uprooted their children, aged 3 years and 6 months, to go and stay with family in Hamilton until things changed.

The Netherlands Ave home was one of first to lose electricity in the city on Tuesday.

Klee said it lost power 11am that day, before the worst of the storm on Tuesday night, 'so we were already powerless when the storm hit.'

The family set up extension cords from a neighbour's property to keep the fridge cool and run a small heater.

'We just trucked along for the first few days, showering at the neighbours and stuff . . . but then it started to become clear that it wasn't going to be a quick restoration.'

The family left Auckland on April 13 to go and stay with Klee's partner's family.

'Anyone with a family would know what it's like to have to leave your home and everything you know, and take the kids away from their toys and their space and go to a new place,' she said.

'What made it so much worse was not knowing [when] we could return.'

Klee said the family was excited to get back into the home and normal routines again.

She said she had missed the things people take for granted, like boiling a jug, making toast, and 'just being warm and cosy in your own home'.

On Sunday morning, Vector spokesman Iain Butler said all of the properties that had lost electricity in last Tuesday's storm had now had their power restored.

However, some other properties that had suffered outages in the following days were still in the dark, he said.

Earllier, the company admitted its customer service systems were insufficient following widespread frustration about inaccurate restoration times showing on its app.

'We haven't had anything like this since we put in our current system of customer communication, so those systems have never been tested to this extent before,' said a Vector spokesman at the time.

'Clearly we need to do better next time.'