PowerNet teams have made significant progress overnight, restoring power to nearly 10,000 customers, including Te Anau and Winton.

Chief Executive Paul Blue said repairing the backbone of the network is well underway and several townships have been restored in the last 24 hours.

“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.

“We’re not able to manage repairs on an individual basis yet, so some customers are likely to remain without power for several days.

“For now our focus is on prioritising where we can get power back on and we’re asking people not to report individual properties without power until we advise otherwise.”

The impacts of power outages are starting to be felt more now, particularly in the rural sector.

“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.

“We’re also supporting the telecommunications sector to secure power supplies to fibre and cell sites.

“We acknowledge this is a challenging time for our customers and ask them to continue to be patient, as we navigate through this event.

“We’d also like to thank the community for all the messages of support and kindness towards our staff who are working incredibly hard in some difficult conditions. Our communities are once again demonstrating their resilience and compassion for each other.”

By the Numbers as at 11am 25 October
The Power Company Limited network (Southland)
Total Customers: 38,200
Customers without power: 12,000

OtagoNet network (South Otago)
Total Customers: 15,700
Customers without power: 3,500

Please note these numbers will change as we undertake repairs and identify faults on the network.