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Weather bombs the locals

Published on July 20^th 2009, 3:43pm

Northpower repair crews struggled for nearly 20 hours to restore electricity to hardest-hit Mangakahia, north-west of Whangarei, and Whangarei Heads areas after the short, savage storm swept through early on Saturday.

Northpower networks general manager Richie Dempster

said the 5000 properties blacked out represented 10 per cent of the company’s customers.

“That’s pretty big. The storm was as bad as the one we had the previous weekend, but we were taken by surprise this time and for some reason more properties were affected,” he said.

“That’s two weekends in a row we’ve had our field teams out in appalling conditions. They’ve done a terrific job ... and most of them had to miss the rugby, too.”

Yesterday up to 200 properties in the Whakapirau, Matakohe and Ararua area were without electricity for a few hours.

Meanwhile, the storm caught Kissing Pt in its fast and frenzied embrace as it roared across Whangarei Harbour.

No-one was hurt when roofs and walls were ripped off four boatsheds and hurled across Riverside Dr and into nearby mangroves at around 4am on Saturday.

Three of the sheds housed boats at the time, all craft escaping with only superficial damage. The owner of one of the boatsheds, Wayne Cowley, believed the sheds had been taken out by a mini tornado.

Only four sheds were hit in a row of many, and the distribution of the wreckage suggested a tornado, he said.

Neighbouring shed owner Brian Keene was also surprised at how narrow and severely hit the damaged area was, and the strength the wind had packed.

“We went through Cyclone Bola okay, and we went through the big blow two winters ago, and last weekend, but I’ve never seen one like this,” Mr Keene said.

View the article on The Northern Advocate’s website

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