Cyclone Gabrielle Update - Monday 6pm
Published 13 February 2023
Cyclone Gabrielle continues to wreak havoc on the electricity network across Kaipara and Whangarei with slips, flooding, and major damage from trees through lines continuing to make restoration difficult.
While we had a small reprieve from the high winds today the teams have worked hard to remove trees from lines and make repairs.
Today our priorities were to re-liven supply from four of our substations, by addressing damage to the main lines that supply power to those substations.
We started the day with over 19,500 customers without power. We have managed to reliven power to Ruawai, Kaiwaka and Maungatoroto main lines, which restored power to 7,000 customers. As at 4pm we had 15,500 customers without power, but the situation is continually changing.
It is a case of one step forward and one step backwards as new outages occur. Now the wind has changed direction, we are seeing new outages occurring in the southern and western side of the network. While strong gusts of wind remain, it is still unsafe to begin some of the repair work.
Crews are out and about scoping all lines that are affected, understanding the issues at hand, and reconfiguring the network in order to minimise outage areas and the number of customers affected.
As damage is assessed we will have a better understanding of potential restoration times across the network. Please keep checking our website www.northpower.com for updates.
We are still working hard to get power on to Ngunguru and the surrounding areas, which has been without power since Sunday morning. We have repaired the damaged main line which runs out to the Ngunguru substation, however there are trees across multiple lines that go from the substation to customers.
Trees now need to be removed and lines repaired before we can bring back service to this whole area. Slips and flooding are currently making access to do this work difficult. Ngunguru and Tutukaka Coast customers who do not have power tonight should prepare to be without power for several days.
Customers in Hikurangi through to Helena Bay currently without power should plan for an outage lasting several days. We are having difficulty accessing the area due to flooding.
From here, our priorities will continue to be livening main lines that supply the most customers. We will continue to scope, reduce outage areas and work on repairing these main lines first. We are aware that there are a large number of low voltage issues with lines on customer’s properties or with equipment like transformers on our network. Once we have the main lines livened, we will be able to work on repairing issues affecting smaller clusters of customers.
We have additional Northpower contracting crews arriving tomorrow from around New Zealand. This is good timing as the weather is forecast to abate. The additional resource will help us to expedite restoration of power as much as possible. Some of the damage is going to require rebuilds which will take some time.
We would like to thank the public and especially those without power for their patience and understanding as we work through this.
A reminder to please treat all lines and equipment as live at all times, please stay well clear of downed power lines and call us on 0800 10 40 40.
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