KEY POINTS:
Efforts to restore power have been hindered by thieves stealing equipment, including cabling, to sell for scrap metal, says power company Vector.
Cable laid out to replace lines in one North Shore street, Harley Close in Takapuna, was stolen during a change-over in shifts, the firm said.
In
other areas of the North Shore, pillar boxes from underground lines were taken. A Vector spokeswoman said the boxes would have been sold as scrap metal.
Acting chief executive Simon Mackenzie - standing in for former boss Mark Franklin, who announced his resignation last Tuesday, the day of the storm - blamed the thefts for affecting Vector's ability to restore power when responding to customers left without power for up to a week.
Asked yesterday about the extent of the power outage, Mr Mackenzie gave the following replies to Herald questions:
Why has it taken until today to reconnect the last of customers who have been without power since Tuesday, July 10.
"We appreciate the disruptive nature of these outages for customers but the extent of the damage was significant.
"What we have been dealing with is an extreme weather event which caused significant damage to our network. Power poles have been broken, trees uprooted, crashing into power lines, causing serious damage.
"At the height of the storm around 150,000 customers were without power and initial conditions were so bad in some cases we were not able to safely send out our crews. Where a large number of customers are impacted our approach is to prioritise getting as many people back on as quickly as possible. The customers who were off for longest were mainly individual customers with extensive damage and/or in remote areas."
Mr Mackenzie said 300 field staff had been pulled in and crews worked night and day under challenging conditions to restore power.
"A disappointing and complicating factor was the theft of some equipment in a number of situations which compromised our ability to restore some customers."
The Robinson family, who live a two-minute drive from Silverdale, said they repeatedly asked when they would be reconnected. The family said: "Six days seems like an awful long time. What is reasonable?" What timeframe is reasonable, in Vector's view?
"We agree - six days is a long time but the sheer impact of the weather and widespread damage has led to this timeframe.
"From a customer point of view we appreciate that being without power for any extended period is not reasonable. But we are dealing with one of the worst storms our network has dealt with so the conditions and sheer volume of work was also extreme.
"At the height of the storm 150,000 Vector customers were without power, as well as those in the Coromandel and Far North."
Has the quality of lines and other infrastructure had any impact on the time taken to repair and reconnect power?
"Not at all. The issue has been extreme weather with 180km/h winds causing significant, widespread damage to our networks.
"The health and safety of the public and our crews must also be of primary importance and initial conditions meant some were unable to work."
Will Vector review its maintenance programme in light of this outage? "We are comfortable with our maintenance programme but we continually look for areas to improve. We will include maintenance as part of our post-storm review and if there is anything we can do better we will do so."
Are customers to expect this to happen the next time there is a similar weather-related event?
"This was an extreme event and one of the worst to hit our network.
"Vector worked as hard as we possibly could, within our safety criteria, to restore power to customers. We will always look to do our very best but cannot predict how the weather will impact from one event to the next.
"We monitor weather days in advance to prepare crews, control room staff and call centre to ensure the best customer response possible."
Will there be compensation paid to customers who have suffered losses such as family food stores, or the employment-related losses of the self-employed who work from home?
"We appreciate the impact power outages have on people's lives and the disruption it causes. This was an extreme storm with some customers experiencing days with no power.
"We've been focused on getting power restored for everyone and will now begin a review process.
"Part of this will be looking at the appropriate response for customers who were out of power for extended periods."
Mr Mackenzie said he wanted to pass on a "huge thank you" to the public for their ongoing support and understanding during a trying time for many of them.
"We have had a large number of cards, emails and phone calls thanking our teams for their hard work."
He also thanked staff who had worked "24/7" to look after customers.
