- The states of emergency for Southland and Clutha remain in place and it is likely the emergency response will continue into next week.
- Royal New Zealand Air Force C-130J Hercules arrived on Saturday afternoon with staff to support the response and large generators for restoring the telecommunications network.
- Other generators available are being prioritised to critical services initially and then will be redistributed as power is restored.
- These critical services are for waste and drinking water treatment, healthcare services, supermarkets and fuel services.
- There is misinformation about fuel scarcity in Southland – this is incorrect, there are healthy supplies of fuel, and these can be resupplied as needed.
- Five percent of the nearly 200 retail fuel sites in Southland and Otago remain without power.
PowerNet says its teams have made "significant progress" in restoring power to customers in Southland after Thursday's wild weather left thousands in the dark.
In an update this afternoon, PowerNet Chief Executive Paul Blue said repairing the backbone of the network was "well underway and several townships have been restored in the last 24 hours".
- Fifty properties still without power in Dunedin
- '45 years of hard work destroyed': Readers share their storm stories
“Our crews are continuing to make safe some of the damage around the regions, but we are also pushing ahead with repairs in areas where we can get power back on to large numbers of customers.”
Mr Blue is warning that while areas may have their power restored, there will be individual customers or small areas within those that will remain without power, due to additional damage or faults.
He said that at 11am today, about 15,500 customers were still without power, down from 25,000 yesterday evening.
These comprised 12,000 Power Company Limited network (Southland) customers, of a total of 38,200; and about 3500 OtagoNet network (South Otago) customers out, of a total of 15,700.
“We’re working closely with Emergency Management Southland, Emergency Management Otago and representatives from the rural sector to identify and find solutions to some of the specific challenges being faced by our rural communities.
Earlier, the Emergency Management Minister said every resource would be thrown at Southland to get the region back up and running.
The Southland and Clutha districts remain under states of local emergency as a result of Thursday's wild weather which knocked out power, water and communications.
An Air Force Hercules was on its way to Invercargill with a load of supplies, generators and National Emergency Management Agency (Nema) staff, Mitchell said.
He said generators would be used to help get cell phone towers running and assist farmers with jobs like milking cows.
Mitchell said Nema staff would support local Civil Defence Emergency Management staff and more supplies would be sent as needed.
"Any resource we need to we will throw at making sure that we get what is required down there to get the power up and running and communication back on line again," he said.
Power companies were working flat out and electricity had been restored to Te Anau and Winton but there were still many properties without power, particularly in rural areas, Mitchell said.
He had not had any approaches for additional funds yet from local councils but there was a mayoral relief fund available if needed.
PowerNet earlier today said electricity had been restored to Te Anau and Winton; however, an issue later meant it was out in Winton again.
Emergency Management Southland said there was no fuel shortage in the region, but there were issues having fuel delivered.
They said the power outage had made it difficult to get the pumps going in certain areas, but wanted to make it clear that there was no shortage.
Generators flown in
An Air Force Hercules aircraft is bringing generators into the region to help deal with the widespread outages.
Almost 90 cell towers are offline there.
Telecommunications Forum chief executive Paul Brislen said as many South Island generators as possible had been sent to Invercargill.
Brislen said cell phone service should gradually start to return, but people should limit calls to keep the network free for emergency calls.
"I'd strongly urge people to limit phone calls to keep space clear on the network for emergency calls," he said.
"If you can communicate via text that would help tremendously because text are very, very small. They don't take up a lot of space on the network. So you can get a lot of people communicating via text than by voice."
PowerNet meanwhile is advising people to remain patient while power is being restored.
It said there would be individual properties or clusters of properties that would continue to be without power "for a variety of reasons".
It's asking people to hold off from reporting outages while it focuses on larger-scale repairs.
Earlier, PowerNet's Paul Blue said yesterday’s focus was understanding the extent of the damage.
"Essentially the backbone of our Southland and South Otago electricity networks are broken — and we have to repair the backbone before we can begin to stand them back up," Mr Blue said.
Damage was caused by broken poles, trees coming down on lines, flying debris from man-made structures or in some cases "the wind gusts were so strong they simply blew our poles and lines over".
"The sheer scale of this damage means we will be working throughout the weekend and well into next week before all customers have power back on."
Electricity returned to some parts of the network yesterday, with a focus on wastewater, water and healthcare services.
Returning Southland Mayor Rob Scott said he had heard the storm was "more intense than Cyclone Gabrielle".
"Entire rows of trees have just been taken out, it's quite a sight. Truck trailers tipped on their sides, power poles taken out, snapped in half, and a lot of broken off branches — quite a mess."
Mr Scott said he hoped to see power, communications links and core services returned permanently across the region by the end of the weekend, but understood it might take longer in some areas.
He thanked those across the region working to restore services.
Most roads around the district were open yesterday.
Emergency Management Southland controller Lucy Hicks said people should still avoid unnecessary travel within Southland and to other regions.
"We encourage people to stay put, stay warm and dry."
Water trucks were stationed at Tuatapere and Ohai where there was no drinking water and Nightcaps, Lumsden and Otautau still had water so residents of nearby towns could source water from there.
Invercargill mayor-elect Tom Campbell said the city’s water systems were relying on diesel generators and automotive functions were being performed manually.
"The problem is, if we project that out more than a few days, then we start to run into problems. Generators start to break down, staff start to get burned out."
The main focus of the coming days would be cleaning up, reopening roads and securing trees, he said.
Water supplies
On Saturday morning, Tuatapere and Ohai remained without drinking water, RNZ reported.
In Tuatapere, a water tanker sits opposite Four Square and, in Ohai, a water tanker is parked on the main street.
People should take their own containers and boil the water from the tankers, before drinking it.
In Clutha, work was under way overnight to get a generator running at the Ōwaka water treatment plant.
Clutha District Council was also placing water tanks in Waihola and Clinton overnight or on Saturday, so people can fill their own containers.
Tapanui residents should boil tap water until further notice.
In Lawrence, the water reservoir was critically low and could run out, due to the prolonged power cut, so residents should conserve water.
People can fetch water from the tanker at the Tuapeka Transport yard.
Meanwhile, power has been restored at the Milton water treatment plant and wastewater plant.
Emergency Management Southland said water would take time to reach the town and could be discoloured initially.
The Gore District Council has assured residents that water is still safe to drink, despite an increase in nitrate levels from power outages and conditions from Thursday's storm.
Mitre10 Mega Invercargill general manager Tracy Key said generators had sold out yesterday and home repair supplies were popular.
Tourists were unable to leave the town because of a lack of fuel.
Communications out of Te Anau had been patchy but at 10pm last night power was restored to the town.
Hundreds of southern farmers are struggling to milk with no power and limited generators to go around.
One dairy farmer in western Southland told RNZ he was sharing a generator with three or four neighbours to milk their cows.
Many farms are isolated and some dairy farmers may have to dump milk.
Southland farmer Stuart Kent said his cows were last milked at 4.30am on Thursday but he was able to milk them late yesterday.
"It took us until two o'clock this afternoon to get a generator. I think I got one of the last ones out of Queenstown.
‘‘As far as I'm aware, Queenstown has got no more generators, most of Southland has no more generators,’’ Mr Kent said.
‘‘We're just finishing up now and then my sparkies will come in, unplug me and we'll go and wire up the neighbour. He'll milk his cows, as soon as he's finished that we'll unplug him and go to another farm. We're hoping to have him finally milking his cows at midnight tonight. He hasn't milked since yesterday morning.’’
‘‘My girls weren't happy, they were extremely uncomfortable, they were moody. They just wanted to get the milk off them and back out to the paddock. They're a creature of habit and they don't like it when you change their routine.’’
He was fortunate stock water ran through his cow shed so he could replenish troughs while he was milking and he had enough diesel on the farm to power the generator.
Emergency Management Southland has warned fuel is scarce because of the power outages.
By ODT reporters/additional reporting RNZ
