Gisborne and Hawke’s Bay communications dead zones as Cyclone Gabrielle hits

What you need to know:

• A national state of emergency has been declared.
• Here is a regional breakdown for how Cyclone Gabrielle is impacting different areas of NZ.
• The emergency declaration applies to: Northland, Auckland, Tairāwhiti, Bay of Plenty, Waikato, and Hawke’s Bay.
• Houses submerged, reports of residents trapped in Hawke’s Bay
• A firefighter is missing in Muriwai after a landslide.
• Gisborne appears to have lost all forms of phone communication
• Heavy rain red warnings are in place for the Northland and Hawke’s Bay, with red strong wind warnings also for Northland, Coromandel and Taranaki. There are wind and rain warnings for the rest of the North Island.
• A number of road closures are in place across the North Island.
• In Auckland there are 27 shelters and civil defence centres where people can go in an emergency.
• What you need to know about travel on Tuesday
• You can track the path of the storm in detail here.
• What you need to have ready in a 3-day emergency kit.

Gisborne and Hawke’s Bay are without phone and internet coverage as Cyclone Gabrielle pounds the eastern communities.

A National Emergency Management Agency (Nema) spokesperson said there had been “significant impact” on fibre, copper, and mobile networks due to power outages in the area.

On top of that, the Napier to Taupō fibre cable had been damaged and cut. That was impacting Vodafone, 2 Degrees, and Spark networks. Vodafone and 2 Degrees were not able to run fixed or mobile services.

Chorus would shortly be updating Nema. Crew safety and getting access was the priority as it worked to restore services.

READ MORE:
* State of emergency in Tairāwhiti, Cyclone Gabrielle forces evacuations, road closures
* Red weather warnings spread as Cyclone Gabrielle hits Aotearoa
* Cyclone Gabrielle: State of Emergency declared as Northland hit by power outages, road closures

Chorus was working with local Civil defence centres to prioritise which cell towers to restore.

Fire and Emergency communications centre national manager Gavin Travers confirmed the service lost all radio and cell contact with crews in Gisborne and Tairāwhiti at 3am on Tuesday.

They were still trying to maintain contact with crews just before 8am.

Crews were responding to emergency call outs at the time of the outage, he said.

It appears the entire region is without phone communication on Tuesday morning. Calls to multiple phones in Gisborne, including the mayor and deputy mayor, did not ring.

The Gisborne District Council’s web page about Cyclone Gabrielle was last updated on Monday to say that a local state of emergency had been declared.

This was superseded by a national state of emergency announced on Tuesday, meaning the Government, not local councils, are responsible for the response.

When the council’s website was last updated, it said Metservice had Gisborne under a red warning. Metservice on Tuesday put an orange rain warning – one grade lower than red – in place for Tuesday afternoon and evening.

Tairāwhiti Civil Defence group controller Ben Green on Monday said the combination of the high-intensity rain, gale force winds, 5 to 7m waves and storm surge, meant Cyclone Gabrielle had a “very high risk of extreme impactful and unprecedented weather across out region”.