Fire and Emergency crews are responding to multiple incidents to help people affected by Cyclone Gabrielle across the top of the North Island tonight.

Communications centres logged 90 storm-related incidents from 7-8pm, bringing the total for the previous 12 hours to 472 (note that this is a rolling 12-hour period). This is on top of another 163 calls for fires, vehicle crashes and other incidents unrelated to the storm across the whole country.

Of the 90 incidents logged between 7-8pm, 24 are in Northland, 28 in Auckland, 27 in Waikato, 6 in Bay of Plenty, 2 in Gisborne and 3 in Hawkes Bay

Fire and Emergency is prioritising the response to calls where life and safety is at risk. Currently these include:

• Trees bringing down power lines and blocking roads in the Far North District
• Rescuing people trapped behind downed power lines, and flooded houses in Whangarei
• Roofs lifting from houses in Kaipara District;
• Trees fallen on homes, slips, flooding, rescuing people stuck in lifts in Auckland;
• Roofs lifting, windows blown out and a garden shed being blown around in Thames-Coromandel District;
• Tree fallen on a house in Waipa District

Fire and Emergency’s Auckland Response Manager Vaughan Mackereth is asking people to remember to call 111 when life and safety are at risk, so the people who urgently need help can get through to our communications centres.

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