Central Whangārei power outage frustrates shop owners and customers

Power was cut to the Whangarei CBD, affecting businesses and people. Some businesses were closed. Photo / Tania Whyte

Power was returned to central Whangārei today at about 3pm.

The outage occured inWhangārei Central, Regent and Riverside areas about 10am with many retailers expressing frustration.

Northpower stated the cause was an underground cable fault, although it was unsure where. They noted that 173 customers were affected by it.

Customer experience manager Rachel Wanstone commented, "We've done a lot of shifting and have solved the power cut issue for many customers. We are now down to just over 100 customers whose problem should be fixed by the end of the day today.

"It is a tricky issue because there is a problem with the underground cables and it's hard to find.

"We have an ongoing maintenance and regulatory system in place along with monitoring the maintenance from time to time."

Traffic lights were also out at the intersection of Walton St and Dent St, adding confusion to the traffic.

Traffic lights were out at the intersection of Walton St and Dent St, Whangarei.Photo / Tania Whyte

While many shops were operating as usual, several others had to turn down customers.

AA customer consultant Jackie Jordan had to turn down 20 customers in the first half-hour of the power outage and said they weren't able to work without power.

Skin treatment business owner Amy Mitchell said they could not work during a power outage as every machine runs on electricity.

"At this point, we'll wait it out and see if it comes back. We do not know how long will it last.

"We had a couple of clients who were halfway through their service and the power went out. Our staff then had to finish some work under the phone torchlight.

"Some of our clients are happy to wait and others have been very understanding of the situation. There's only so much we can do other than wait and see."

Sanchia Nel-Potgieter, Sam Gibson, Shar Schreurs, and Tracee Valli having time out from work at Essentially Skin during the power cut. Photo / Tania Whyte.

Many cafés and restaurant owners were also unhappy with the interruption of service.

One of the café owners said, "We have just prepared the food and some of it will be starting to spoil without warming ovens or refrigerators. We cannot even make coffee for our customers. Many customers have walked away and we'll probably shut down for the day if this continues for a few more hours."

Split Bar and restaurant owner Dan Marsland say there was little to do but resort to working by candlelight.

"We've only got the gas working, so we will do the preps for the day and wait for the power to turn back on."

Many were frustrated with the ATM machine and bank not operating on Rathbone St because of the power outage.

Margaret Lloyd waits patiently for the power to come on at the Westpac ATM. Photo / Tania Whyte

Louise Kehoe was waiting outside the bank for an hour to get cash and file paperwork.

"I wanted to get the work done and meet a bunch of friends for coffee but not many coffee shops are operating now."

Margaret Lloyd gets only one day off work which she uses for chores. "It is very inconvenient. If the power does not come back in a few hours, the banks won't open and I'll have to wait another week to get my work done."

Specsavers staff had to cancel all their appointments for the day with optometry equipment needing power.

"We pretty much had to reschedule everyone today and tried to call as many people as we could. We can only pray for the power to come back up."

Nail stylist Anna Vu also faced a similar issue and had to reschedule all the appointments for the day.

"We do not know when the power comes back and we cannot really do anything without it. All our machines run on electricity, so we cancelled the client appointments for the day."

Shops on James St were affected by the power cut. Cheapskates in darkness. Photo / Tania Whyte.

A furniture shop owner in the CBD said advance notice would have helped. "For any other power outages in the past, we were a notice. Without the notice, we cannot be sure when it's coming back. Our eftpos machines don't work and it's inconvenient to do business under these situations."

Northpower put up an update at 12.14 pm and said, "our team have restored power into some parts of the CBD and are working with our control room to locate the fault affecting customers in the Aubrey, Grey, Norfolk, Seaview and Dent Street - Thank you for your patience."