About 11,000 still without power in Hawke's Bay and Gisborne

Monday, 20 February 2023

Unison crews work to get power back to Napier on Friday.

Napier-based lines company Unison says power has been restored to 73% of homes in Napier and 95% of homes in Hastings following last week’s cyclone.

That follows efforts by the company and national grid operator Transpower to bypass Transpower’s crippled Redclyffe substation.

Unison said that as of Monday morning, just over 10,300 consumers remained without power in its region, of whom 8600 were in Napier and 1700 in Hastings.

It reconnected 5100 consumers overnight, bringing the total number it had reconnected since the cyclone struck to 65,800, but warned some customers in rural areas could be without power for “weeks” because of damage to power lines.

Footage taken from the air with the urban search and rescue team surveying Hawke's Bay after Cyclone Gabrielle.

* Transpower knew Napier substation was 'critical' risk in worst case flood

Unison said it had completed an initial assessment of the backbone of its rural network by helicopter.

Incident controller Jason Larkin said it had identified the key sites to repair and was deploying crews to those sites “where access permits”.

Its crews had worked extremely hard over the weekend to rebuild a key river crossing between Napier and Hastings that would normally take three months to complete, he said.

“Now it’s completed, we have a second line from Hastings to Napier increasing the amount of electricity supplying Napier.

“Two emergency supplies into Redclyffe substation, which is crucial for continuing restoration of Napier, will be completed early this week, enabling Unison to continue to restore power to more areas of Napier, and begin to return supply to outlying areas.”

Gisborne-based lines company Eastland Group said there were now only 618 customers without power in the Tairāwhiti region.

But it said they were in areas with “major damage, with multiple lines and poles down, flooding and silt and slips, along with some access challenges”.

“As our crews travel around the region, we’re seeing the devastation out there first hand, along with the incredible resilience of local communities,” it said in an update on Monday afternoon.

The number without power has been reduced to the point where Eastland has been able to provide a detailed breakdown of the areas where there are still outages.

There are still 162 homes cut off in the Te Puia area and 64 without power in Wairoa.

Eastland said 50 customers without power on Waimata Valley Rd in Makauri should be reconnected this afternoon.

Communication outages have been a more widespread issue in the Gisborne region.

Chorus chief executive Jean-Baptiste Rousselot said on Monday morning that it had laid 5 kilometres of new fibre-optic cable in the region to bypass “multiple breaks” on its network, but still had work to do.

Chorus was prioritising reconnecting cellphone towers over fixing faults to people’s home-broadband connections, he said.

2degrees was able to restore its fibre connection between Gisborne and Wairoa on Saturday evening, allowing it to restore mobile coverage for 2degrees customers in “most of Gisborne” and to provide 111 coverage for customers of any network.

On Sunday, it had 16 cellsites down nationwide, down from a peak of 160 on Tuesday.

It also reopened its stores in Napier, Hastings and Gisborne on Monday to help customers who needed assistance.

Vodafone said it had 15 cellsites out of action, down from a peak of 185 on Tuesday.

“Most of our sites are back up and running. As we restore services, we are prioritising calls and texts, especially in the Napier, Hastings, and Gisborne areas,” it said in a noon update.

Spark said it now had “full services; calls, texting and data, up and running in Wairoa, as well as in central Gisborne”.

It was working hard on restoring connectivity north and south of Gisborne, it said in a mid-morning update.

Telecommunication Forum chief executive Paul Brislen said in a mid-afternoon update that between the three carriers, 10 out of 214 cellsites were offline in Northland, 12 out of 142 were out of action in Hawke’s Bay and 19 out of 99 were down in Gisborne.

Communities still without power in Gisborne

Ngakoroa Rd: 1

Tikitiki (Incl Waiomatatini Rd, Poroporo Valley Rd): 17

Inland/Te Puia area: 162

Makarika Rd: 9

East Cape Rd: 22

Tauwhareparae: 63

Hokoroa Rd: 6

Mata/Ihungia: 55

Waiapu Rd: 18

Kopuaroa Rd: 4

Waimata Valley Rd: 50

Tahunga: 19

Whatatutu: 2

Waingake/Taurau Valley: 74

Bruce Rd: 6

Tiniroto/Bushy Knoll: 46

Taumata/Tahora: 64

Wairoa area – 64

Raupunga (incl. Kahungungu, Kakariki and Kotemaori): 43

Frasertown (incl. Marumaru and Putere): 4

Morere: 13

Whakamahai: 3

Mahia: 1