More than 79,000 Auckland homes without power, some may be cut off for days

Wednesday, 11 April 2018

Widespread power outages, trees down on cars and houses, and powerlines fallen.

The worst of the winds are over but 79,500 Auckland homes are still without power, and some may be for days.

Auckland was battered by 'phenomenally gusty' winds and heavy rain overnight. Gusts reached 100-150kmh across central Auckland, peaking at 213kmh at Manukau Heads.

An overnight storm has caused a major scaffolding to collapse at a Hobsonville Point building site.

More than 120,000 homes were without power on Wednesday morning – a quarter of Auckland's homes – but crews working on restoration had brought that down to 79,500 by Wednesday night.

Were you affected by Tuesday night's wild weather? Send your photos to newstips@stuff.co.nz

Damage to the network was 'extensive' and widespread, and it could be several days before power was restored to some areas, Vector said.

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Aucklanders are being warned to drive only if they have to, with debris and trees littering roads and multiple traffic lights, motorway signage and traffic cameras not working.

At the airport, customers are being advised to defer any non-urgent travel. People who must travel on Wednesday could expect disruptions, an Air New Zealand spokesperson said.

Winds also tore roofs off houses. In at least one case a tree fell onto a car with a woman inside. Among the most spectacular casualties, a three storey building site collapsed in Hobsonville.

A downed tree on Ranleigh St, Mt Albert.

A worker at the Rangihina Rd site declined to comment about the damage.

DAMAGE TO ELECTRICITY NETWORK 'EXTENSIVE'

MetService said there would be strong winds, snow and rain for much of the country on Tuesday.

Police work to free a woman trapped after a tree crushed her car in Morningside

Vector said the damage to the network was extensive, and it may be several days before power is restored in some areas.

'Strong, intense winds and heavy rain have caused widespread damage on the electricity network throughout Auckland,' a spokeswoman said.

More than 100 field outage staff were spread throughout the region responding to lines down, faults, power outages, and other damage to infrastructure.

Vector has had reports from field staff that members of the public were taking it upon themselves to cut trees away from power poles and lines and/or moving downed lines from the roads or driveways themselves.

'We must stress to our customers – please, do not do this,' the spokeswoman said.

A tree has fallen, enveloping a car on New North Rd in Mt Albert.

'Your safety and the safety of our field staff is our primary concern, and your actions could put yourself and others at risk.'

Extra outage response crews have been brought in from outside of Auckland to assist with the extremely high number of call-outs, the spokeswoman said.

More than 10,000 calls were placed to Vector's contact centre to report power outages, faults, and lines down overnight.

The number of people without power varied throughout the night and into Wednesday morning.

Jacqui Johnson from Glendowie was driving to work this morning along Tamaki Drive when she saw a boat smashed up against the rocks.

Vector said crews had restored power to about 100,000 customers as of 5pm, but there were still about 79,500 without power.

FIRE SERVICE 'FLOODED'

Trees down in Hepburn Rd, Grey Lynn after Auckland faced hurricane force gusts.

Fire and Emergency said it had been 'flooded' with 111 calls, with 1611 emergency calls made throughout the country between 6pm Tuesday and 9am on Wednesday.

These included calls to trees and powerlines down, roofs blown off houses, houses damaged by falling trees and crashes where cars had hit falling trees, Fire and Emergency northern communications shift manager Daniel Nicholson said.

Starbucks in Auckland's Queen St lost a part of its sign scattering debris on the footpath.

Of those calls, 1257 (78 per cent) were in Auckland alone.

The busiest time was between 8pm and 1am, with West Auckland hit first, then reports of damage spreading out across the city, Nicholson said.

A tree lies across Market Rd in Auckland during high winds.

The strongest winds hit west Auckland from about 8-9pm, then further east from about 9-10pm.

The Northern Communication Centre received the most calls between 9pm and 10pm, with more than 560 calls reported in that time.

Firefighters were continuing to work through the backlog in the early hours of the morning.

The 111 line spiked again between 7-8am as people woke to see and report damage to their homes or around their neighbourhoods.

Fire and Emergency's national manager for communication centres, Gavin Travers, says the sheer volume of calls coming through the centre was 'startling'.

He says staff had been working hard to handle calls as fast as possible, but there are still hundreds of calls coming through.

Auckland Civil Defence and Emergency Management said emergency services were 'inundated' responding to calls.

'To help them, if your house is uninhabitable and you can't stay with friends/family call us on 0800 222 200.

'If trees are down on public property/roads call Auckland Council on 09 301 0101.'

Only call 111 if there is serious risk to life, they said.

AUCKLAND WAKES UP TO DESTRUCTION

Insurance claims have 'soared' in the wake of the storm, with AA Insurance receiving more than a week's worth of claims in one night.

'Our team has seen a large increase in calls to lodge home and motor claims related to storm damage,' AA Insurance customer relations manager Amelia Macandrew said.

Trees had fallen on to homes and cars across Auckland.

Oratia resident Zane Martin said it would have been a 200kmh gust that knocked over the tree that now covered a car on his property.

'It was just a roar, the wind was louder than the tree coming down.'

He wasn't sure what would happen next. The water had been shut off, power was down and the landlord was coming to assess the damage.

'I don't know where we go from here.'

The car was a write-off, he said.

Another tree had fallen across the neighbour's house.

'I talked to them about 5am this morning. They're OK. Luckily the one that came down on their place was one of the smaller ones. It's just resting on the place.'

Mt Albert resident Mikayla Lambert was at home last night when she heard what sounded like an explosion.

'I went outside and saw the massive willow tree at the end of our street had completely fallen down – I was shocked.'

The tree was 'massive, very thick and sturdy' and often had local kids climbing it.

A tree was ripped out of the tarmac in Ponsonby Rd last night.

Karangahape Rd resident Hamish Stirrat said the sight of the downed tree was 'pretty epic.'

'These trees must be at least 80 or 90 years old and its just giving away.'

Royal Oak resident Sumil Singh woke to find part of the roof on his unit had been ripped off.

'The wind has pulled it up,' Singh said.

'I don't know where it's gone. I had a look around for it, but can't find it anywhere.'

He said his family hunkered down in the storm last night, listening to banging sounds on the roof above.

Rain was collecting in the hole in the roof but no water was coming into the unit.

'I'm just grateful there's no water inside.'

The wild winds caused a tree to crack and fall on top of a Parnell carport.

Residents of Brighton Rd noticed that a large tree had fallen onto their neighbour's carport, damaging it.

A number of small boats were seen up on the rocks along Auckland's Tamaki Drive.

CELLPHONE TOWERS OFFLINE

Telecommunications have also been affected by the wild weather, with Spark warning customers that they may experience slower than usual mobile data connections.

A Spark spokeswoman said although the network had not sustained any physical damage from the storm, the widespread power outages meant 50 Spark cellphone towers around the country were offline, and more were running on battery power.

A majority of the affected cellphone towers were in the greater Auckland area, she said.

At 12.30pm Spark announced it has opened up its wi-fi network for Auckland.

Spark has more than 250 WiFi phoneboxes throughout Auckland. Anyone in the region – including non-Spark customers – within range of a Spark WiFi hotspot can simply search for the Spark network (named 'Spark wi-fi zone') and click to join the network, with no password required.

The telco said they were deploying generators to restore power to some cellphone towers on Thursday morning, where possible.

'Customers may still receive some mobile coverage from other cellphone towers in their area. However customers may experience slower than usual mobile data connections as the load increases on the remaining towers.'

Vodafone head of technology operations Ian Hooker said about 70 sites went out in Auckland last night, and remained out this morning.

Hooker said the Vodafone network was 'faring well' in the wake of last night's severe storm, though some customers could be experiencing 'degraded cellphone coverage'.

While 70 sites were down, customers would be receiving service from surrounding sites, he said.

'The team are hard at work getting all our sites back up and running, and expect to see many come back on line throughout the course of this morning.'

About six sites were running on generator, he said.

TRAFFIC WARNINGS

Due to widespread power outages, traffic lights, motorway signage and traffic cameras were not working, Auckland Transport spokesman Mark Hannan said.

There have also been reports of surface flooding.

Hannan urged motorists to approach uncontrolled intersections with caution and observe normal give way rules.

All motorways across the Auckland network and the Harbour Bridge remained open, NZTA said.

Train services have also been disrupted.

LOOKING FORWARD

The storm eased early on Wednesday but only very slowly, with much of the country still affected.

MetService duty meteorologist Doug Mason said the worst of the wind was over.

'Active' showers are forecast for the Auckland region on Wednesday, with the potential for thunderstorms and hail later in the day.

The storm will continue to ease on Wednesday and Thursday, before another front makes its way across the country, Mason said.

As the intense low that brought the overnight battering moved away to the east the whole country was flooded by very cold air coming from Antarctica and the Southern Ocean.

Most of the 10 strongest gusts recorded overnight were in the Auckland region but there was also a gust of 142kmh recorded at Mt Kaukau in Wellington.

The low had come ashore over Waikato, and moved just south of Auckland. The strongest winds had been just to the north and northwest of the low. 'This time around the windiest place in the country was indeed Auckland.'

Around 5am Wednesday the low was moving over Bay of Plenty. 'It has weakened a little bit over land so the wind is starting to ease but only very slightly,' Marten said.

The snow that closed the Desert Road overnight had fallen to as low as 500m, although it hadn't settled at that level. The significant accumulation of snow had been down to 700m.