Northpower Electricity Supply Situation

Thursday 12th July 2007

Northpower Electricity Supply Situation

The situation is improving rapidly.

This was a major storm and has caused widespread outages. The majority of damage has been caused by trees close to lines bringing down poles and wires which are difficult to access.

We are endeavouring to have all main lines working by the end of today. We have also started working on individual customer faults. However there will be pockets in remote areas that are likely to be affected until the weekend.

30 additional staff have arrived from our Wellington, Rotorua, and Auckland depots now, who are not urgently required to maintain electricity networks in those areas. We have 150 field staff plus support workers now operating in the area. This is 3 times the staff normally engaged in fieldwork.

It is almost impossible to estimate restoration times for individual customers so we ask customers to please be patient. We are working 24hrs a day to restore services. We also remind customers to limit calls to urgent safety matters, such as wires or poles down, and trees through power lines.

Everybody is reminded to keep clear of power lines which are low or on the ground. All such lines must be treated as being live at all times and we ask parents to check their properties and closely supervise children near any power lines.

Our number one priority is to get our areas without power restored. We have brought in a helicopter to fly the remote areas and identify faults. We currently have 5500 customers still without power, this number is significantly down from yesterday. Whilst still high, it is dropping rapidly.

Major areas still without power that are being worked on at present are:-

• Hikurangi and Hukerenui
• Ruatangata and Pipiwai
• Mangakahia Valley and Twin Bridges
• Whatitiri and Maungaturoto
• Ruarangi and Ararua

ENDS

© Scoop Media