Cyclone Gabrielle: Sparking power line left unfixed for a week, locals fear blaze

Locals have spent sleepless nights fearing a fire could start in the Waitākere Ranges due to sparking power lines left unfixed for a week after Cyclone Gabrielle.

About 42,000 homes were left without power across the Auckland network, which is managed by Vector, immediately after the cyclone.

This was down to 900 as of Wednesday.

But Henderson Valley resident Leanne Drube said she was frustrated with Vector’s lack of communication, as she had been complaining about a power line that had been sparking near trees for the past week.

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There had been nights when she was too scared to sleep for fear of a fire potentially starting, she said.

“If it isn’t fixed, you won’t have to worry about restoring power to homes – because there won’t be any.”

She first noticed the power lines across her shared driveway about 6am on February 15.

Several times over the next few days, she called the emergency line to see if someone was coming.

Drube said she received a call from Vector after midnight on February 22, asking her to guide her to the fault so a worker could take pictures.

However, she didn’t feel safe walking the 500m to the road in the dark with hazards about.

She said she had also already supplied pictures of the fault to Vector.

Drube, who works in health and safety, said she was sympathetic to how busy the teams must be, but was confused there seemed to be no system to prioritise incidents that could cause further damage.

A spokesperson for Vector said they had been to Opanuku Rd on Sunday evening to assess the lines, which an engineer said was not a safety issue.

“We will dispatch a faults person to check again given the customer’s concerns as this may be a different issue to Sunday but difficult for us to determine without the exact details.”

Oratia resident Ruth, who Stuff has agreed not to name as it would impact her job, said she was facing similar issues.

Downed power lines across Kauri Loop Rd had trapped residents for days, she said.

She had tried multiple times over eight days to log the problem with Vector, she said.

“I understand there’s a lot going on and they are working really hard, but how long are we going to wait?”

She said residents had received no communication from Vector about when they could expect some help.

“At the moment it feels like we are in limbo.”

A Vector spokesperson said they were aware of the outage caused by the downed lines on Kauri Loop Rd.

“We have been working hard to get communications through to customers as we understand that being without power is extremely stressful.”

If a logged job wasn’t showing up on the outage map, it could be for a number of reasons, they said.

Another fault may have occurred in the area, there could be underlying faults that needed addressing or the service line to individual homes could be faulty, they said.