Work continuing to reconnect customers' power
Powerco field crews are out in force today working to restore power to customers following gale force winds on Sunday night and into Monday.
Gusts of up to 153km/h resulted in 2,900 customers without power overnight on Sunday. Most outages were caused by trees bringing down lines.
As of 11am, 557 customers are without power across Powerco’s network (not all of which are wind-related outages), the mainly affected regions are:
- Manawatū/Tararua 367 customers
- Wairarapa – 76 customers
- Whanganui – 22 customers
Crews made good progress yesterday restoring power supply, initially focusing on reconnecting high voltage lines that restored large groups of customers, followed by low voltage lines which reconnected smaller groups.
That restoration work continues today, however reconnection work in the Pongaroa/Ākitio area of Tararua is proving particularly difficult with lines down in a challenging section of forestry block. Crews there are currently waiting for a window of clear weather so that a helicopter can be deployed to assist with the re-stringing of overhead lines – however conditions may not clear sufficiently today.
Unfortunately, the 188 customers connected to that supply will remain off tonight.
A Base Power generation unit is currently on its way to the area to provide generation at the Ākitio Community Centre from this afternoon, which is operating as a welfare hub for affected residents.
While crews are working as quickly and as safely as possible to make the required repairs, Head of Network Operations, Caz Haydon acknowledges that waiting to be reconnected is frustrating.
“We understand how frustrating it is to be without power, particularly for an extended period of time, so I’d like to personally thank our customers who are without power for their patience and understanding while we work to fix the damage and reconnect you.”
Current outages
To view the current outages on Powerco's network visit the outage map