Cyclone Dovi rocks the Bay of Plenty causing fallen trees and damaged power lines

Power remains out to thousands across the Bay of Plenty this morning due to high winds from Cyclone Dovi.

Dovi arrived in New Zealand yesterday, battering the North Island and upper South Island with winds between 130km/h and 150km/h.

Powerco said crews were out in force this morning reconnecting customers after strong wind and rain caused a number of outages over the weekend.

Approximately 14,000 customers remained without power across Powerco's networks as of 9am Monday with Bay of Plenty and Taranaki hardest hit. 6391 and 3053 customers are without power respectively.

Hundreds of customers still have no power in Omanawa, Te Puna, Bethlehem, Matakana Island, Aongatete, Katikati, Te Puke, Pongakawa, Greerton, Lower Kaimai, Whakamarama, Pāpāmoa, Ōmokoroa and Tauranga.

There are also 2595 customers without power in the Coromandel, Thames, Waihi and South Waikato areas combined.

Powerco Network Operations manager Scott Horniblow said teams were working as quickly as they could to clear debris and restore customers now that conditions had settled.

"Conditions were very challenging at times yesterday, making it unsafe to scale ladders and carry out reconnection work. As winds started dying down yesterday afternoon we were able to continue into the evening with restoration work, and we're picking up again this morning," Horniblow said.

Planned maintenance outages across Powerco's network have been postponed to allow reconnection work to continue at pace.

"Reconnecting customers is our priority at the moment, so we have postponed planned works for Monday and Tuesday so crews can focus on the reconnection work at hand.

"We'd like to thank customers for their patience as we work to reconnect them."

Unison is reporting only a handful of outages still in the Hamurana area.

MetService Meteorologist Lewis Ferris said the top gust recorded in the region yesterday was 137km/h at Mamaku.

Tauranga Airport recorded 104km/h, 83km/h at Rotorua Airport, 81km/h at Whakatāne Airport and 56km at Taupō Airport.

Fire crews kept busy

A statement from Fire and Emergency New Zealand said firefighters responded to more than 300 calls across the country yesterday.

Fire and Emergency Bay of Plenty district manager Jeff Maunder said firefighters were responding to incidents such as fallen trees and power lines.

"Our crews across the Bay of Plenty have been extremely busy responding to weather-related calls since this morning.

"We appreciate the patience of the community as we prioritise and deal with all of these calls."

A New Zealand Police spokeswoman said trees were brought down across the roads throughout the Bay of Plenty.

"We have received multiple calls for service for weather-related problems, blockages on highways and minor surface flooding."

Between 8am and 3pm today, eight fallen trees were reported to police in Rotorua.

Across the wider Bay of Plenty, police responded to 26 incidents of fallen trees and three incidents involving damaged powerlines.

Pyes Pa resident Susie Jones drove home from Castle Point through floods and strong winds to find a tree collapsed across half her street today.

"We thought we were safe and then there was a tree blocking the one side of the road," Jones said.

"It had fallen just about five minutes before we got there, outside the next-door neighbour's house."

This fallen oak tree in Pyes Pa was only one of several weather-related incidents in the region today. Photo / Supplied

Jones said Fire and Emergency services arrived on the scene 20 minutes later and "chopped the tree all up".

Jones had lived in the same house since 2012 and said she had never seen winds like those blowing in with Cyclone Dovi.

Tokoroa-based event management business owner Rebekah Garner was dropping her daughter off in Pilot Bay when she experienced the dangers of Cyclone Dovi first-hand.

"We literally watched one of the dinghies, break away from its rope and come flying towards us pointy end first," Garner said.

"It just smashed straight into the front of the car and went all down the side of the ute, over the ute and into the middle of the road."

Garner and her daughter got out of their vehicle and found they were not strong enough to drag the dinghy back to its place on the beach.

"A couple of guys came and helped us put it back where it belonged."

Garner said she was grateful she had parked in that spot as her ute stood between the dinghy and a group of children who were about to cross the road.

"If we weren't parked there the boat probably would have taken them out.

"If that dinghy had hit a person with that force, it would have been strong enough to kill."

Simon Thompson. who lives in Mount Maunganui went for a walk to assess the damage in the area and saw two windows blown out at the Mount Royale apartments on Maunganui Rd just after 3pm.

He said there was a lot of tree damage in Pilot Bay, a lot of big branches had come off trees and some construction building wraps had come loose.

"It had been really blustery from about 1pm.

"People were almost knocked over by the wind."

During his walk he came across the apartments and said the windows must have just been smashed because he heard sirens shorly after.

A Tauranga City Council spokesman said the council had received "a number of calls about damage caused by ex-tropical cyclone Dovi".

"This has mainly been trees and debris blocking roads and footpaths which contractors have been cleaning up.

"We will have a better understanding of the full extent of the damage once the weather system has passed and staff are able to assess our transport network, spaces and places."

Power outages in the Bay of Plenty region. Image / Supplied

Multiple power outages affecting thousands of homes are also being reported in the area by Unison and PowerCo, though it is unclear if all of these are weather-related.

In Rotorua, the outages are affecting almost 2000 homes from Hamurana and Ngongotaha to Okere Falls and near State Highway 30.

Damage on the corner of Doncaster and Tara Rds in Papamoa.

The areas with the largest outages are recorded by Unison as 772 homes in Hamurana, Ngongotaha and Waimihia Bay and 492 at Okere Falls. Estimated restoration times vary with the latest estimate 10pm.

PowerCo is reporting outages around the western Bay in Te Puke, Tauranga and Waihi. Homes at Oropi, Te Puna and Tauriko are all affected.