Water restored after outage dries up Central Wellington
Thursday, 14 September 2023
Wellington faces strict water rules, like 2-minute showers and outdoor watering bans.
About 40% of the region’s water is seeping away through leaks.
Charging for water looms, but not all are sold on metering.
Water has been fully restored to Queens Wharf, allowing hospitality venues to reopen, after a burst water pipe had earlier caused outages in the inner city.
Water was fully restored at around 6:30pm after an outage that affected Waring Taylor St to Queens Wharf and through to Hunter St.
The repair was ahead of schedule after an original estimated deadline of between 8pm and 9pm.
Wellington office workers were sent to work from home on Thursday morning due to a pipe that had burst in the area.
Wellington Water said the water network was complex but it had been able to divert water around it to minimise the disruption the incident has caused.
As water came back on, residents and businesses were advised to run a cold tap for a few minutes to remove any possible discolouration and air bubbles in their service pipes.
“We’re still working on getting water restored to the remainder of the area,” Wellington Water said.
There are three water tankers in place at Waring Taylor St, Hunter St, Elizabeth Taylor St; residents and business owners are advised to bring water containers.
Read more on Wellington’s water problems at The Post.
One of the closed traffic lanes northbound on Customhouse Quay has now reopened but drivers have been asked to avoid the area. T
One Wellington office worker whose building was affected told Stuff he and his coworkers had been sent to work from home due to the outage.
The building manager for 7 Waterloo Quay, Ian Kilpatrick, said the entire building, which housed about 1500 people had to be emptied out due to the water outage.
“The tenants are sending all their staff home, we’re closed.”
The Department of Internal Affairs, NZ Post, Kāinga Ora, Ministry of Housing and Urban Development, and the Teaching Council were some of the government departments and affiliated agencies forced to send staff to work from home, he said.
Kilpatrick said the first warning he got of the water outage was when Wellington Water replied to let him know the water was out for his area.
The entire PwC building, which is based on 10 Waterloo Quay, had also been evacuated.
Stephanie Presper, who works at The Lab on Waring Taylor St, said the cafe was unable to make coffee and staff had had to turn away many customers seeking a brew.
It had been “shocking” to her to realise how addicted Wellingtonians were to coffee and she predicted they’d go to extreme lengths to get it.
The Lab remained open and will continue serving juices and food.
Little Grump, on the corner of Featherston and Johnston streets, still has access to water, despite being in the outage zone.
The cafe had been busy and barista Talia Paul said it seemed like everyone was “coming to us” because it was one of the few places in the area that could still serve coffee.