Storm batters region

Storm winds toppled trees, cut power, and detoured traffic throughout Wairarapa yesterday.
Galeforce winds battered Rimutaka Hill, slamming a car into a bank and forcing a daylong closure of State Highway 2 yesterday.
Motorists waiting to cross the route queued at the side of the road in Featherston from 8.20am until 3.15pm, when Land Transport NZ finally declared it open.
The winds were powerful enough to knock a small car into the Wairarapa side of the hill.
John Abbott, of South Wairarapa Auto Services Tow and Salvage, journeyed up the highway to recover the vehicle and described the conditions as the worst he had seen there in years.
"I haven't seen winds like that in a long time. I was in a decent-sized tow truck and that was getting blown around a lot in the wind and rain."
Northwesterly gusts on the hill reached speeds of 142km/h, with the average wind speed sitting at 80km/h, the Met Service said.
Neil Carr, a delivery driver for juice company Simply Squeezed, said the weather seemed "all right" when he crossed the hill at 5.30am during his daily Upper Hutt to Masterton run.
But when he returned to Featherston at about 11am yesterday, he found himself waiting in a line of vehicles for the electronic sign at the edge of town to give the all-clear.
"My wife in Upper Hutt has a scanner and she phoned me up to tell me the road was closed, so I knew I was in for a bit of a wait.
"It's been funny watching people drive past the sign thinking they can get through and then five minutes later you see them come back down again."
Heavy gusts had forced him to slow down to 50km/h while on his way back through Wairarapa.
"The truck was getting rocked from side to side, so I could imagine what it was like up on the hill. I've been doing the run for about a year and a half and this is the first time I've been stuck, so I guess it's not all bad."
Oldfield's supervisor Tony Pritchard said the contracting company's 20 staff had been kept busy by around 30 call-outs, most of them to clear downed trees in the Masterton district.
"Wind damage did not seem to be as bad in South Wairarapa. It was mostly spread about the hills and around Masterton."
Delivery of the Wairarapa Times-Age also took a hit yesterday with the newspaper rolling into town an hour and a half late as severe winds meant the truck was unable to reach Masterton.
Powerco network operations manager Ross Dixon said power was cut to about 2500 Wairarapa households yesterday morning due to the severe winds toppling trees and broken branches into overhead power lines
He said the first power outages hit around 8am and cut supplies to Cape Palliser and Lake Ferry homes with households in Greytown, Martinborough and Mt Bruce also losing power as the weather deteriorated into the morning.
Mr Dixon said the company had received severe weather warnings and was prepared for the storm with extra repair crews.
"The field crews made good progress yesterday, restoring supply to more than 1000 customers in Wairarapa in only a few hours," he said.
He said by late afternoon yesterday power was still to be restored to up to 2000 households although the heavy weather was expected to continue into the evening
And "we may sustain more damage and there is a possibility some isolated customers will be without power overnight".
Mr Dixon said the company's focus was to safely restore power to all affected customers as soon as possible, however, crews were being hampered by the difficult conditions.
Carterton fire chief Wayne Robinson said two crews of firefighters and a fire van began a busy morning with their first wind-related call fielded at 9am.
He said 16 emergency calls were made comprising loose roofs, battered fences, wind-felled trees, blown-in windows and downed power lines in gusts that clocked at up to 130km/h
"It was dangerous to work in sometimes you just have to take the iron off the roof rather than replace it."
Mr Robinson said fellow Carterton volunteer firefighter Richard Epplett, who is also a glazier, "came in handy, carrying a roll of glazing Glad Wrap, which was just the thing for patching smashed glass".
He said Greytown firefighters reinforced crews in Carterton in the morning, and again in the afternoon as winds died down and flooding was reported at Dalefield Road.
Greytown fire chief Chris Williams said his crew also faced emergencies caused in the wild weather with five callouts attended, including downed power lines, lifted roofs and wind-felled trees.