Farmers can't milk cows, tropical fish have died, spoiled food is being thrown away and the Bay of Plenty's lines company cannot say when power will be restored to thousands of customers.
Power outages have plagued the Bay of Plenty since Cyclone Dovi lashed the region over the weekend. Some residents have been without power since Sunday.
Powerco confirmed to the Bay of Plenty Times that because of the widespread damage and multiple faults in some areas it cannot say when the power will be back on.
More than 5000 Powerco customers had lost power at one point yesterday including 2261 in the Bay of Plenty and some in Waihi.
Some dairy farmers cannot milk their cows and others are reportedly low on water as they cannot run their water pumps, Federated Farmers says.
The organisation's Bay of Plenty provincial president Darryl Jensen said he was still gathering information about the effects on local dairy farmers of power outages.
Jensen said he could not milk his cows at his Paengaroa farm but fortunately was able to walk his herd to a neighbouring property to be milked.
"Some farmers in the Waihi area haven't been able to milk their cows for several days and they were told it could be five to eight days before their power is restored.
Jensen said four to five days of not milking could cause significant animal welfare problems, such as mastitis.
"In a worst-case scenario, unmilked cows could start to dry themselves off."
He said Federated Farmers was also investigating how much damage there had been to maize crops, some of which had been due to be harvested.
Strong winds have also reportedly significantly damaged some avocado orchards in the Bay of Plenty.
Katikati-based Just Avocados Ltd managing director Andrew Darling said there were reports of storm damage to a number of Katikati avocado orchards.
Darling said he was in the South Island but had been told a shelterbelt measuring about 8m high and 250m long had blown over.
"I built that shelterbelt about 10 years ago at a cost of $40,000 to $50,000 plus we had two huge oak trees which were planted on the property 20 years also come down.
"We've had a team out assessing the full extent of the damage for our more than 120 private growers," he said.
Andrew Cutfield, Just Avocados Ltd's general manager of investor relations and supply, said it was still "early days" in assessing the full extent of wind damage at orchards owned by about 140 private growers.
Cutfield said fortunately 95-plus per cent of these orchards had already harvested their crops and only about 2-3 per cent of the fruit had been still hanging on trees.
Bay of Plenty orchardist Hugh Moore told Radio New Zealand some avocado trees were uprooted by the wind and others had lost branches full of fruit.
This meant new season fruit and the last of this season's crop were affected.
New Zealand Avocado chief executive Jen Scoular told RNZ that the industry had already been facing a difficult season, with softer demand in some export markets leaving growers struggling to get break-even prices.
Scoular said the large volume of fruit that had fallen on the ground would not be salvageable, partly because of food safety but also because much would be bruised.
"I had one grower who thought they'd lost half of their crop, which was ready to be harvested between now and April and other growers who have a lot of the new season fruit on the ground as well."
Scoular said New Zealand Avocado could provide technical advice to growers including things they could do to try and nurse wind-damaged trees back to health.
NZ Kiwifruit Growers Inc said they were still gathering information on the extent of the impact on orchards, particularly any significant crop damage.
Neta Noonan from Katikati said she was on day four without power yesterday and rushed home from work at 2pm when news came that it was back on.
"I definitely thought we were going to get affected but I just didn't think it was going to be four days."
Noonan said she lost two tropical fish and $200 of food because of the power outage.
Her partner messaged her yesterday that two of her six fish had died.
"I just didn't know what to do, and I didn't have enough money to go and buy a manual pump filter.
"I'd just done my grocery shop for the week. A lot of people had to do that. I don't have contents insurance, which I think I'm learning my lesson there."
Her dinners consisted of "toasted sandwiches over the barbeque or sausage sizzle".
Noonan said her entire suburb in Katikati went out because of multiple trees falling on power lines.
Noonan had to travel to her mother's house to shower and did her makeup at work.
"My mum lives on Wanganui South Rd and her power came on at 10 o'clock the same day. She was like, 'I'm having a shower' and I was like 'lucky you'."
Powerco network operations manager Scott Horniblow said every available crew member was working to reconnect the remaining 5058 customers still without power.
"Bay of Plenty is the most impacted area with 2261 customers without power and there were also 958 affected customers in the Coromandel, Thames, Waihi and South Waikato areas combined."
Plus, 414 customers in Whanganui, 334 in Wairarapa and 124 in Manawatu, were affected, he said.
Horniblow said Powerco had postponed planned maintenance outages on Tuesday and tomorrow so crews could focus on clearing debris and restoring power.
"Reconnecting customers continues to be our number one priority, particularly those who have been without power for some time now.
"We have every available crew working on the remaining faults, which range from broken power poles, downed lines, trees in lines and broken hardware.
"The aftermath of the storm means slips [are] blocking roads, which slows down work and makes it difficult for them to access sites. For this reason, helicopters and drones are being used to assess and plan restoration activities.
"In areas where there are multiple faults, the complexity of repairs means that it's taking much longer than expected to restore supply and we're unable to provide an estimation of when power will be back on.
"We know this is extremely frustrating for people and we'd like to thank our customers for their continued patience and assure them that we are doing everything we can to reconnect them as quickly and safely as possible."
Electricity was restored to the Western Bay of Plenty District Council's water supply services in Te Puna and Omokoroa and pumps are fully operational again.
- Additional reporting Sammy Carter
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