Nearly 1,000 customers in the Wairarapa are expected to remain without power overnight after strong winds battered the region.
MetService has issued wind warnings for the lower North Island and upper South Island, after strong northwesterlies toppled freight trucks in Otago on Thursday.
Powerco, New Zealand's second largest electricity provider, told 1News that 2527 customers are battling outages as the wild weather continues to cause damage to power lines across the country.
"Some Wairarapa customers will remain without power overnight after wild weather throughout the day caused multiple outages across the region and hampered field crews’ efforts to make repairs," Powerco said in a statement on Friday night.
"Crews worked throughout the day and up until 9pm Friday evening to attend outages caused by strong winds, debris and downed lines.
"Approximately 950 customers remain without power."
Extra teams have been organised to begin extensive repairs from 7am on Saturday as the weather is expected to settle overnight, the energy provider said.
Masterton is now among the worst hit, with 466 households without power as at 4pm.
Powerco has deployed field crews on site, working to restore power to the area but current conditions are making it hard to work safely.
“The high winds mean it’s sometimes too dangerous to use elevated platforms or climb ladders to access power lines. There’s also a lot flying debris,” Network Operations Manager Scott Horniblow said.
With strong wind gusts expected to continue well into the night, it's not yet known when crews will be able to restore power for those affected.
“Crews will be working to restore as many customers as they can up until 9pm tonight. We’ll then resume efforts from 7am Saturday morning for any customers who are off overnight.”
More information about current outages in the area, can be found here .
Fire and Emergency New Zealand have been called out to more than 100 incidents in the area.
FENZ spokesperson Mike Wanoa told 1News the weather has “escalated to the extent that crews are really quite stretched over in Wairarapa”.
This includes “fences blowing over, shed roofs lifting, trampolines flying”, among other events, including three seperate trucks blown over by wind gusts.
All three vehciles were toppled on a stretch of road between Masterton and Carterton in the space of an hour.
Crews were alerted to the first incident just after 12.30pm, with the second vehicle tipped over at 1.23pm.
Then, two minutes later, a third truck was toppled by the strong winds in Clareville, hitting a powerpole and blocking the Southbound lane.
No one was trapped or injured in any of the crashes.
Metservice's strong wind watch for Wairarapa, including the Tararua District, remains in place until 9pm on Friday.
There are also strong wind warnings in place for Wellington, Marlborough and Canterbury, with strong wind watches for Taihape and Hawke's Bay.
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