High winds wwreak havoc across district

WANGANUI Fire Service, Powerco linesmen and police were caught up last night on the fringes of Cyclone Funa, which has caused havoc through the lower North Island.
High winds have fanned fires, lifted roofs and downed power lines in Wanganui, the Central Plateau, Rangitikei, Taranaki and the Manawatu.
The winds also caused power faults on the city's radio transmitters on Bastia Hill The Radio Network on the Water Tower and RadioWorks in Shakespeare Rd. Transmission for both stations was cut about 4.15pm.
The Radio Network's Newstalk ZB and Radio Sport's transmitter at Wiritoa and Awa FM's Putiki transmitter though were not affected.
Powerco network operations manager Ross Dixon told the Chronicle power faults started at 10am.
While power had been restored to about 15,000 customers, he said just under 1000 homes were still without power late last night.
He was hopeful the majority would have power before 1am today.
"We are finding that we restore power in one area only to have high winds cause trees and branches to come down on lines somewhere else."
Mr Dixon said Powerco placed additional resources on standby earlier this week after receiving the severe weather warnings from the MetService.
"The MetService indicated we could expect gusts of up to 130kph and reports from the field indicate the forecast was accurate."
In Wanganui, a Rodney St house roof was blown off and repaired by fire service staff.
The number of Fire Service callouts to areas where power lines had come down saw the service stretched to the limit with its four crews and four appliances constantly on the go as well as attending to medical emergencies.
One of the fire callouts was to Mowhanau Beach, where a vegetation fire, near the water supply tank, was heading up a hill to a cottage.
"We put out fires, sawed trees, nailed a roof and fence," a fire spokesman said.
One of the areas where it had to saw trees was on SH3, near the Kaitoke Hill.
Traffic was reduced to one lane and was controlled by Transit New Zealand workers.
South of Waiouru, near SH1, a large fire broke out at 1.20pm.
Doused by helicopters together with fire crews from Taihape and the Waiouru army brigade, it was under control last night.
However, last night another major fire north of Bulls on Brandon Hall Rd was still being fought by fire brigades from Bulls, Marton, Palmerston North, Ratana, Rongotea and Ohakea Air Base.
The fire started at 3.45pm in a hay shed and spread into a pine plantation.
Four helicopters, nine Fire Service and rural fire crews and tanker crews were at the fire.
CAPTION: High winds caused a fire to race quickly through this patch of scrub and threaten a cottage near the Mowhanau Beach water supply tank before it was brought under control.