11 Jul 2015

100 Gisborne residents still without power

4:11 pm on 11 July 2015

About 100 properties are still without power in remote parts of the Gisborne area, and snow on the roads continues to hamper efforts to restore supply.

Five additional lines crews have been brought in from Bay of Plenty, Napier and Wellington to help.

General manager of the lines company Eastland Network Brent Stewart said those crews will be working throughout today and into tomorrow.

He said they were having to follow road graders slowly through deep snow to access some properties.

Mr Stewart said they were making slow progress and unfortunately many people still would not be reconnected tonight.

"Some areas today we're basically following in the road maintenance crews behind their grader actually to get access to these places, they go ahead of us and grade the roads so we can actually see it and find it and then go in there and endeavour to repair the faults."

He said most people are unlikely to have their power restored until tomorrow night.