Auckland woman's long wait for power, 12 days after the storm

An Auckland nurse is at her wit's end after enduring 12 days without power at her Titirangi home.

Annetta Ellis has resorted to washing clothes at a friend's house, using her barbecue most nights and showering at work after losing power when a nearby power pole toppled in the monster storm that battered the city on April 10.

The massive weather event knocked 180,000 properties off the grid as gusts of 140km/h hit the city, with 213km/h recorded at Manukau Heads.

And while lines company Vector said it believed it had finished all repairs related to storm damage earlier today, Ellis' Titirangi house remained in the dark till around 8.40pm tonight.

She said she received an email from Vector today saying her power would return within about 30 minutes, but it wasn't restored till hours later.

It had been a long wait for the nurse who was looking after a sick son at home.

"I'm getting really, really over it now," she told the Herald earlier today.

Ellis said in the past week she had repeatedly told Vector that while the power pole had been replaced, it still needed the lines put in place.

All those conversations had been recorded, she said.

However, when someone finally arrived to fix the problem the company was not prepared for the task at hand.

Ellis said she was told it could not be done because an entire crew was needed for the job.

"My biggest gripe in all my dealings with them has been that there's been a lot of conflicting information."

She said she was hugely appreciative of the kindness shown by friends during the long stint without power, especially considering most of her family was not based in Auckland.

Earlier today, a Vector spokeswoman said the company believed it had finished repairing all storm-related damage on the network.

"There were five individual faults shown on the outage map which were left to repair heading into the weekend - these have now been fixed."

Those five were yesterday spread across Whenuapai, Massey, Waitakere with two in Dairy Flat.

Any other individual properties without power may be experiencing an outage unrelated to the storm, she said.

The spokeswoman said Vector managed the distribution of electricity in Auckland via its network of power lines and cables. Individual properties were connected to the network via customer-owned service lines, which Vector did not manage.

"While the reparation of a fault on the network which powers Ms Ellis' street returned electricity to her neighbours, an issue with Ms Ellis' service line meant her home was not restored at the same time.

"Vector staff have since returned and installed a new service line to Ms Ellis' property so that a private electrician did not need to be called."

Power was restored to her home about 8.40pm.