Throughout Gore the remains of the weekend’s intensely strong winds lie scattered on the sides of roads and hanging off trees — a headache for many.
Power went down throughout Southland as lines battled against 155kmh winds and Powernet had to take down their outage map due to the scale of the issues.
Powernet chief executive Paul Blue said, in a statement, as of noon, Monday, approximately 6250 customers in Southland remained without power.
"We’re now at the point where areas may take longer to restore as they are more complex and with widespread damage.
"People should prepare to be without power for several days yet."
Mr Blue said it was imperative to be patient, check in with neighbours and wait until staff get there, warning people not to clear debris from power lines themselves.
"Please don’t do this, as it can be very dangerous," Mr Blue said.
"Make sure you have reported broken poles, lines down or trees on lines to us and wait for our teams to get there."
Mayor Ben Bell and the council were hard at work at the weekend, setting up an emergency co-ordination centre in the council chambers to better support the region.
Mr Bell said the council acted quickly when the scale of the emergency became apparent.
The Gore District Council, supported by Civil Defence and Invercargill City Council, worked to assess damage and help to mitigate potential risk within the region.
Now the cleanup process was beginning but it was imperative to play it safe over the next week to reduce the chance of injury or damage, Mr Bell said.
"We’ve been urging everyone who have been sharing generators to let Civil Defence know, to ensure people don’t burn out sharing those.
"We are urging people to exercise caution.
"There’s a couple of trees hanging over playgrounds, as well," he said.
Minister for Emergency Management Mark Mitchell came down to the region earlier this week, visiting affected areas and announcing support packages for the region.
Mr Bell went around with Mr Mitchell yesterday and said there was a good response from the government to help out the community, with $150,000 allocated for the rural relief fund.
"It was really good the minister came down, and I know [MP Joseph Mooney] has been doing a lot of driving as well.
"He really gave thanks to the command centre at Civil Defence Southland and then ... thanking both Hokonui and Cave FM, who stayed online over the long weekend to ensure the message is out there," he said.
Mr Bell again urged people to exercise caution, as the cleanup was expected to continue throughout the week.
