Power cuts in Northland despite severe weather warning

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Scheduled power line maintenance work which will see power cut to 15,000 Northland homes and businesses all day today has started, despite a severe weather warning for the area.

Transpower planned the outage for the Far North some weeks ago to install new equipment and undertake essential maintenance on the 110kV transmission line that supplies the area.

Transpower spokeswoman Rebecca Wilson said it had started as scheduled despite the MetService yesterday saying parts of Northland could expect 150-200mm of rain in the eastern hills and some northeasterly gales.

"The guys on the ground said the outage has begun and their work is underway," Ms Wilson told NZPA.

"They are not expecting the bad weather to arrive until this afternoon. If if got really bad the work would finish early."

Power was turned off at 8am and was not expected to be resumed until 5pm.

The outage is for all districts north of the Mangamuka Ranges, the East Coast of the Far North, the Kaitaia district, North Hokianga and other parts of the Far North area.

Transpower said the equipment was being installed in preparation for the building of a second transmission line between Kaitaia and Kaikohe. This line would remove the need for maintenance outages that the Far North experiences every two years.

The heavy rain warning issued by Met Service said a low was deepening in the north Tasman Sea and moving southwards, bringing northeasterly gales and rain.

The grim weather should drift only slowly southwards over Northland and was not expected to clear the area until the early hours of Tuesday.

The amount of rain was likely to produce rapidly rising rivers and streams, also slips, and hazardous driving conditions.

- NZPA