Slips and debris on North Island roads will take days to fully clean up and some households are still without power after a weekend of wild weather.
Vector crews conducting storm damage repairs in Auckland on Monday. Photo: Vector / Brett Phibb
Weather warnings were lifted last night, but thousands of properties were still without electricity this morning following the gale force winds and downpours.
Lines companies warned it could take a few days to get power back on to everyone because of the number of outages and repairs in hard-to-reach rural areas.
At its peak, about 50,000 homes and businesses were without power in the Auckland region.
Vector had 5000 customers still without power in the Auckland region at Monday lunchtime, mostly in rural north and west Auckland, but 1000 on islands such as Kawau and Waiheke. In Northland, 1200 customers were still cut off.
Some 6000 properties were without power in Bay of Plenty, 4000 in upper Waikato and 3000 in Coromandel. At 9am, 3053 customers were without power in Taranaki and 855 in Whanganui.
Chief operating officer Peter Ryan told Midday Report crews had worked around the clock since early Sunday morning.
Crews were fixing the network's backbone first, then the lead-ins to homes, Ryan said.
A tree brought down at Te Kere Davey's home in Hāwera in gales yesterday. Photo: RNZ / Robin Martin
A Taranaki family had a close call when high winds brought down a mature tree at their Hāwera home.
Te Kere Davey said if the tree had fallen a metre to the right it would have shattered the main window in the lounge.
Road damage 'widespread'
State Highway 1 was closed near Marton on Monday morning, as were SH56 south of Palmerston North at Opiki, SH53 between Featherston and Martinborough, and SH2 between Forth St and Lennie's Rd near Masterton.
Waka Kotahi spokesperson Mark Owen said most main highways were cleared and back open, but many local roads were badly affected, including in the Wairarapa.
Drivers should allow extra time for travel because there was still surface water and debris on the road, he said.
"We just want to flag this has been widespread, a lot of water, a lot of slips, a lot of tree damage, so it is going to take a few more days to do the full clean-up.
"Some of the slips still need permanent stabilisation so we have crews out assessing those.
"We do know that some of the local council network has been significantly impacted" - Waka Kotahi spokesperson Mark Owen
About a dozen roads remain closed in South Taranaki and motorists were being asked to take care on about 20 more.
A slip on to train tracks near Plimmerton stopped a freight train on North Island main trunk line, suspending northbound services on Monday morning. MetLink's Kāpiti Line hd bus replacements between Plimmerton and Waikanae.
Branches split from a tree at Onerahi, Whangārei, in gales and heavy rain at the weekend. Photo: RNZ / Sam Olley
On the South Island's West Coast, SH67 to Karamea was still closed from Mokihinui, after two bouts of heavy rain in recent weeks. It would reopen at 9am, 1pm and 5pm traffic to be escorted over the Karamea Bluffs.
Owen said it would take weeks, if not months, to do the full reinstatement of the road.