Roading maintenance engineer Peter Standring said slips closed both the Portobello and Highcliff Rds during the night.
Falling trees, which caused major damage to a digger and truck on Portobello Rd late Thursday night were cleared and other trees threatening the road below were cut down today.
Tree specialists inspected the remaining trees in the spot above the road near the Cove this afternoon and considered them stable enough to reopen the road, but they, too, would be removed over the next few days.
Geologists had assessed the integrity of the bank below the trees during the day and were satisfied with its stability, he said.
Three Mile Hill Rd from Dunedin to Mosgiel and McGrath Rd, near Karitane, were re-opened this afternoon, although Gladstone Rd and Braeside in Mosgiel remained closed by surface flooding.
A tanker of fresh water has been placed at the Macandrew Bay playground after moving earth damaged the Dunedin suburb's main water pipe in several places yesterday.
Dunedin City Council water distribution manager Mike Perkins said council staff discovered a second hole in the mains pipe about 4.30pm after fixing another hole. He was not sure how long it would be before water was restored to residents.
"It could be five hours, it could be six, we won't know until we know how bad the damage is."
He urged residents to get fresh water from the tanker in the meantime. It appeared the damage was caused by sodden earth moving around the pipe.
Power has been restored to several central city streets after a transformer fault this morning, although several homes in Manor Pl, City Rise, are without power after an underground substation in the area was flooded.
A Delta spokesman said Delta hoped to have power restored to the homes by tonight.
Earlier report:
The sodden Otago Peninsula was earlier described as 'very unstable' as authorities worked to clear slips and reopen the main road access.
The two main access roads to the Otago Peninsula were this morning cut off by multiple slips caused by persistent rain over the last 24 hours.
Senior Constable Lox Kellas, of Portobello, said the whole peninsula was saturated.
"The rain has made it very unstable; it's more like gloop than jelly really."
He said numerous slips between Company and Macandrew Bays had closed Portobello Rd in places between Castlewood Rd and Dunedin.
A digger smashed by a large tree hampered efforts to clear Portobello Road. An eyewitness told the ODT the digger was balanced on a 45degree angle on the edge of the sea wall near Challis Point. A truck beside it had also been damaged by the tree.
There were also slips in Sandymount and Seal Point Rd and a major slip had closed Highcliff Rd between Portobello and Pukehiki.
It was better that people did not travel if they could avoid it, but they could still get to Dunedin from Portobello via Castlewood Rd on to Highcliff Rd if needed, Snr Const Kellas said.
Some resourceful residents took to the harbour to get to work. University of Otago technician Neil George told the ODT from his inflatable boat that he had a big day at work and this was the only way he was sure to make it to the lab.
A transformer fault knocked out power to the City Rise suburb of Dunedin City.
Pupils at the Arthur St School and Otago Boys High School were sent home for the day.
Reports earlier today that power was out to 200 homes on the Otago Peninsula were incorrect, she said.
Elsewhere, Three Mile Hill Road between Dunedin and Mosgiel was closed. Meanwhile, the Lower Taieri and Silverstream rivers appeared to be coping with overnight rainfall.
The Otago Regional Council said they looked to be receding. Both rivers were monitored on Thursday night in case they broke their banks.
The council earlier warned residents in eastern parts of Otago to prepare for possible flooding.
However, it now says rainfall overnight was steady rather than heavy and the level of both rivers looks to be receding.
Services in Otago went on high alert yesterday, with rivers being monitored closely as the region experienced heavy rain from the tail-end of the storms which have battered the rest of the country in recent days.
More than 40mm of rain drenched an already sodden coastal Otago yesterday, raising rivers and closing roads, railway lines and some schools early.
The rain was expected to continue throughout the night, with a MetService severe weather warning predicting 20mm-30mm could fall along the coast to 5am, with 30mm-50mm in the hills.
However, the rainband was expected to break up as it travelled southwest today, bringing scattered showers to inland Otago, before dispersing over Fiordland, MetService forecaster Paul Mallinson said.
From 4am to 8pm yesterday, 52mm of rain fell in Oamaru, 40.2mm in Dunedin city and 30.4mm at Dunedin International Airport.
In comparison, during flooding at the end of July last year, 75mm was recorded and during the April 2006 floods about 170mm was recorded.
Inland Otago escaped the brunt of the rainband which had travelled from the north, with no rain recorded in Queenstown or Wanaka before 4pm and only 8mm in Ranfurly.
Otago Regional Council resource science manager Matt Hickey said rain on already saturated ground meant rivers from the Shag in the north to the Tokomairiro in the south and the Taieri inland were running well above normal.
Otago Regional Council staff started calling farmers with stock near the Kakanui and Shag Rivers in North Otago and the Silverstream on the Taieri about 11am when it received the first warnings rivers were rising.
The Silverstream peaked at 78 cumecs at 4pm and started to drop, but the sustained rain saw it remain at about 75-77 cumecs.
Last night, Taieri River was continuing to rise from its low of 55 cumecs at 8am to 267 cumecs by 7pm.
The regional council expected it to reach about 500 cumecs and peak during the night.
The Kakanui River at Clifton Falls Bridge peaked at nearly 100 cumecs at 4pm.
The Shag River at the Grange was flowing at 141 cumecs at 5pm, compared with only 5 cumecs at 8am.
One person had to be evacuated to a neighbour's property by Oamaru's fire service last night after a retaining wall in Douglas Tce started to collapse.
Pupils at schools in East Taieri, Oamaru and Palmerston were sent home early and Papakaio School was closed all day.
Last night, the Dunedin City Council warned drivers to take extreme care in Portobello Rd because of surface flooding and landslips.
The road was reduced to one lane at Macandrew Bay for a short time.
The fire service was also called to pump water from the Macandrew Bay School pumphouse last night.
A detour was put in place when a blocked drain under the railway overbridge at Deborah closed State Highway 1 between the Oamaru boundary and Deborah about 3.50pm.
It was still closed last night.
Surface flooding closed roads in the Waiareka and Kakanui Valleys, around Herbert, Dunback, Duntroon, Waikouaiti and Waihola and on the outskirts of Dunedin and Milton.
Small creeks and streams across the region had flood flows, slips closed smaller roads, or reduced them to one lane, and the storm brought large waves along the North Otago coast at high tide .
The Waitaki District Council shut down pumps on several rural water schemes in the area to prevent contamination by flood water.
The heavy rain also disrupted rail services in the South.
Flooding between Glenavy and Studholm and at Herbert closed the Main South Line between Studholme and Dunedin last night.
The line would be inspected this morning to assess when it could be reopened.
Fourteen separate problems, from slips and washouts, to blocked culverts and rocks on the line, closed the Main North Line from Christchurch to Picton until at least tomorrow, an Ontrack spokesman said.
The rain has also led to early cancellations of some Saturday sports events.
As of last night, all Saturday junior rugby and football games in Dunedin were cancelled on advice from the Dunedin City Council because of ground conditions, with only premier teams set to play.
The North Otago Rugby Union has transferred tomorrow's Citizen Shield senior rugby semi-finals from the Whitestone Contracting Stadium in Oamaru to the Maheno Rugby Club, while the North Otago Yacht and Power Boat Club has postponed Sunday's blue cod fishing contest, to August 23, because of heavy seas.
