Some West Auckland residents say they are at ‘breaking point’ after being warned it might be days until their power is reconnected
Vector has ruled out compensation for thousands of Aucklanders left in the dark after Tuesday's vicious storm - but one irate customer plans to get his money back by refusing to pay his power bill.
The "Vector Promise" states that urban customers of the lines company should get a $50rebate if their power is not restored in 2.5 hours after an outage. For rural customers, it's three hours.
But the promise does not apply to faults caused by extreme storms or other extreme events outside the company's control, Vector says in its online reference guide (PDF).
Vector said this evening there were less than 1200 properties still without power and the company was now repairing localised damage in those areas.
The outages effected 180,000 properties when the storm hit on Tuesday.
A company spokeswoman said Vector was focusing on restoring as many customers as quickly as possible.
"However, Vector is not in a position to compensate for loss of electricity supply as a consequence of significant weather events like this (i.e. an act of God).
"We recommend customers check with their insurers to understand their coverage for any loss in the event of a significant weather event or natural disaster."
However, the company would not be charging customers affected by the outages for their daily flat fee to the network.
Glen Eden man Stephen Delahunty has had no power for six days.
This morning, after his fifth cold shower in a row, he decided "there is no way I'll be paying a power bill for the next several months".
"It's costing me money. All the food from my fridge has been thrown out. I have spend $30 on batteries for my torch.
"Currently I'm trying to keep basics like milk cool in a chilly bin that needs a bag of ice each day. Not to mention the money I'm spending on takeaways."
Vector's outage map shows most are small, isolated faults; the company says some could take another week to fix.
Delahunty said he saw the explosion where his overhead lines attach to the power pole at the end of the street.
Last time that happened it was a blown fuse that took five minutes to fix, he said. But when he finally managed to register the outage with Vector, he was told it wouldn't be fixed until Thursday at the earliest.
"My electricity supplier and I have a contract that says they supply me electricity and I pay for it. No electricity supply means no payment as far as I'm concerned. If my electricity supplier has a problem with that they can take it up with their lines supplier, Vector."
The ferocious storm wrenched this tree out of the ground at Western Springs. Photo / TJ Joubert
More than 100 power lines were taken out by the storm, and Auckland Council said by Friday night it had received more than 2000 calls about downed trees - more than it normally gets in a month.
Vector has warned many other trees are on the verge of toppling.
Virtually every street in Auckland had some level of tree damage, regional arboriculture manager Bruce Edwards said. Some streets had lost half their well-established trees.
