Hundreds still off the grid: Vector crews continue to work towards restoring customers' power

Nine days after a monster storm knocked 180,000 Aucklanders' properties off the grid, hundreds are still holding out to flick on the lights and boil the kettle.

Latest information provided by Vector said around 400 customers were still cut off.

A statement on the company's website said crews were continuing to work hard to restore power for those customers still cut off after the storm.

"The vast majority of Auckland suburbs now have ten or less customers that are without power," it said.

The storm last Tuesday night brought destructive winds that peaked at 212km/h at Manukau Heads and knocked out power for 180,000 people in just a few hours.

Power had since been restored to a vast majority of homes.

However, those still living with outages were nearing the end of their tethers and trust in Vector was wearing thin, after they woke up today to their ninth day without power.

Mt Wellington resident Rosalie Balderston was over the moon to have had power restored this afternoon - but she doesn't think she should have had to work as hard as she did to achieve this.

Balderston was caregiver to her 92-year-old mother, who suffered from angina. They had lost power when the storm struck last Tuesday and had been living without since then.

The restoration of her power came about in a somewhat unconventional way - desperation struck this morning and she approached some Vector crewmen working near her home.

"I told them our situation and they were aghast," she said.

"The fella I spoke to turned up and our power is now on. The fuse at the boundary took a couple of minutes and a check of the mains 10 minutes at most.

"And for that 10 minutes we waited over a week."

Balderston and her mother wound up in hospital earlier this week, when her mum's condition took a turn for the worse.

Her mother relied on a medical alert system, which subsequently relied on power to charge.

It switched onto a backup battery source days after the power went off, then died.

"If she gets up and she is unable to call me, if she collapses like she has a few times, smacks her head open, she needs it."

She had told Vector of their situation during several calls to the company, to no avail.

Other Aucklanders who had contacted the Herald took issue with the period of time Vector was taking to restore their electricity as well as the company's communications.

"Today is my ninth day without hot water and I consider myself luckier than those without power and hot water," an Orewa Beach resident wrote in.

"To be told you are not a priority ... Vector have absolutely no compassion."

Other Herald readers who had been in contact reported outages in Piha and Oratia.

"We are getting a bit fed up," a Piha woman wrote.

"I understand that living in an isolated community comes with its drawbacks, and being last on the list for restoration was expected, but being without the ability to access mains water it means we have more issues than the majority of Auckland.

"Hard to believe that we could go this long without power in New Zealand's biggest city."