{"id":577655,"date":"2026-08-23T08:20:11","date_gmt":"2026-08-23T08:20:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/577655\/"},"modified":"2026-08-23T08:20:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-23T08:20:11","slug":"hundreds-still-without-power-as-storm-grid-fault-hit-lower-south","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/577655\/","title":{"rendered":"Hundreds still without power as storm, grid fault hit lower South"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Hundreds of customers remain without power across the lower South Island after two separate events \u2014 a national grid fault and a fierce storm \u2014 knocked out electricity to tens of thousands of homes and businesses today.<\/p>\n<p>National grid owner Transpower NZ hit a significant issue at lunchtime, cutting supply to most of Southland for around two hours and leaving approximately 25,000 customers in the dark.<\/p>\n<p>At the same time, stormy conditions that battered Southland and parts of Otago from the early hours of Sunday and through the afternoon caused their own outages across the region.<\/p>\n<p>An <a href=\"https:\/\/www.1news.co.nz\/2026\/08\/22\/new-and-upgraded-weather-warnings-as-fronts-bring-rain-and-wind\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">orange-level strong wind warning<\/a> for Southland and parts of Otago was lifted at around 2pm on Sunday.<\/p>\n<p>In its latest update, lines company PowerNet said about 300 customers remained without power and it hoped to restore at least 150 of those tonight.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The remaining 150 customers are individual faults identified throughout Southland and Otago,&#8221; it said. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;These faults may affect a single property or small group of properties and can take longer to repair.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Crews would continue to work while it was safe to do so, PowerNet said, but those still without power should make preparations now in case it was not restored today.<\/p>\n<p>PowerNet operations general manager Geoff Thorburn said field teams had been well prepared for the storm.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We have had crews out since the early hours of Sunday morning, when the winds first hit. They were out working on repairs when Transpower&#8217;s issue first occurred and have continued working through this afternoon,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>Thorburn said the grid fault should no longer be the cause of any lingering outages.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Everyone affected by Transpower&#8217;s outage will have had their electricity restored by now, unless there is weather-related damage to poles or lines. If you are still without electricity, and you haven&#8217;t called us to let us know, do so now on 0800 808 587.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>He said lightning had done much of the damage and urged people to stay away from downed lines.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;If you come across any storm-related damage today where vegetation or debris is in contact with lines, don&#8217;t be tempted to try and clear it yourself. Call 111 if there&#8217;s immediate danger &#8211; or call us on our 0800 number.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>He credited residents, businesses and farmers for the preparation work done since <a href=\"https:\/\/www.1news.co.nz\/2025\/10\/26\/state-of-emergency-for-southland-clutha-likely-to-remain-into-next-week\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">last year&#8217;s October wind event<\/a>, including trimming or removing trees near powerlines.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We know that many of you have been checking, trimming, and cutting down trees that threaten powerlines over the past year, and that will have made a difference today.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hundreds of customers remain without power across the lower South Island after two separate events \u2014 a national&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":577656,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1080,42,43,15488,40,38,41,39,3393],"class_list":["post-577655","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-dunedin-otago","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-southland","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-weather-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/577655","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=577655"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/577655\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/577656"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=577655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=577655"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=577655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}