Rain, tides and wind wreak havoc in North

Northlanders are mopping up after three days of extreme weather that felled trees, sank boats, flipped a truck and cut power to thousands.
The weekend storm caused widespread damage in the north and west of the region, and its effects were still being felt at high tide yesterday in Dargaville when sandbags were needed to hold back the Northern Wairoa River as it threatened to spill over stopbanks.
A long-line fishing boat moored in the normally sheltered Mangonui Harbour sank, and a yacht was driven on to rocks there by winds of more than 100km/h. No one was on board the fishing boat at the time, and its owner is believed to be overseas. A salvage operation was expected to start today.
In Dargaville, emergency services were forced to use their ingenuity to stop a 40-metre-long forecourt roof at Dargaville Caltex blowing off and striking an LPG tank on Sunday.
Large trucks were parked in front of the service station to act as a windbreak, while a digger rested its bucket on the roof.
Fears that the roof could fly into traffic led police to close nearby Victoria St for part of the day.
The town's volunteer fire brigade was also called in to secure part of a church roof at Baylys Beach.
While the gale-force winds - peaking at 138km/h at Cape Reinga - eased yesterday, a cold snap was expected to sweep across Northland overnight. The freak weather system has brought an unseasonal dump of snow to much of the South Island and the North Island central plateau. Northland was likely to escape the cold gripping the south, but daytime highs would be knocked back by a sou'-westerly flow all week, weather ambassador Bob McDavitt said. By tomorrow, he said, Northland would find relief from the squalls and heavy showers that have pelted the region since a deep low passed over on Sunday.
As well as high rainfall, abnormally high tides, low atmospheric pressures and strong onshore winds had combined to wreak havoc, Mr McDavitt said.
The high winds took their toll on the region's power lines. Hundreds of homes, from Te Kao to Towai and the Wekaweka Valley to Russell, were left with power that was, at best, intermittent.
The general manager of lines company Top Energy, Steve James, said the weather was so rough that at one stage, late on Sunday night, the company considered pulling crews from the field due to dangerous winds.
He apologised to customers who rang to report faults during the storm but were greeted with a busy signal.
"Top Energy's fault service is able to handle up to 200 calls at one time. On a number of occasions on Sunday this number was exceeded, and callers were left with an engaged signal. Top Energy apologies to those people and intends to review its processes and equipment," he said.
At least 35 of Top Energy's 45 main feeders had been out of action at some time between Saturday night and Monday morning, with hundreds of faults affecting power consumers.
Some homes had no power for more than 12 hours, but most supplies should have been restored by yesterday evening, Mr James said.
Northpower network services manager Calvin Whaley said about 6500 Northpower customers had no electricity for varying periods during the weekend.
The west coast had really taken the brunt of the outages, some customers going seven-and-a-half hours without power.
Far North District Council spokesman Rick McCall said 16 Far North roads were cleared of debris or trees after the storm.
Foreshore Rd in Ahipara had taken a battering from large seas that washed part of the road away.
In Kohukohu, in the usually calm inner reaches of the Hokianga Harbour, waves washed over the road, bringing minor flooding to low-lying areas.
The Hokianga ferry service was suspended on Sunday, but was running normally yesterday, he said.
Staff at Woolworths in Dargaville were forced to sandbag their storeroom doors in the early hours of Monday morning, and three boats were flipped at Te Kopuru wharf.
Northland Regional Council hydrologist Dale Hansen said flooding in Dargaville had been caused by a combination of low barometric pressure, gale-force winds and higher-than-usual spring tides raising water levels to 300mm above normal at midnight on Sunday.