A day of persistent rain coupled with strong wind gusts early yesterday proved too much for a large tree which crashed on to a parked utility and an 11,000 volt power box on Napier Hill.
The mature karaka tree was uprooted after the soggy soil holding it gave way, and crashed
across Milton Rd just after 4am.
A large branch smashed the rear window of the parked utility and left a dent in its roof.
It is understood the vehicle's owner was out of town at the time and contractors moved it to a safer location.
A contractor with the Superior Exterior Tree Care company said the tree had blocked Milton Rd.
After the bulk of the branches had been chainsawed off and removed to get the road open to one lane by 8am, work had to be halted.
The 11Kw transformer box which the bulk of the tree's root system had crashed on to was still live, one of the tree removal workers said.
Unison engineers then isolated the transformer and installed a temporary power switchover so the rest of the tree could be removed.
The size and weight of the root base, which was about 1.5m across, meant a crane was needed to lift it clear.
No major damage was done to the transformer box.
Contractors also trimmed several other branches along the stretch because they were overhanging the road.
The area had been prone to slips in the past, with a major slip having come crashing down 50m away about five years ago.
The road was re-opened to two-way traffic late yesterday.
No other major slips had been reported anywhere else on Napier Hill or on the region's main highways.
"A lot of small ones but nothing notable," said NZTA acting state highways manager Gordon Hart said of SH2 and SH5.
The rains, while "annoying", had not been intensive enough to cause the sort of problems that had emerged in May.
The Napier-Wairoa highway was hammered on that occasion, with about 100 slips over three days.
