By lunchtime on Thursday 23 October 2026, Invercargill was the windiest place on earth and within an hour, the damage to PowerNet’s networks was extensive.
More than 50,000 customers throughout Otago and South Otago were without power and infrastructure damage included hundreds of kilometres of line down and hundreds of poles destroyed.
PowerNet Chief Executive Paul Blue said the network damage caused by the storm was unprecedented and the restoration job facing the crews was huge.
35 out of 25 Southland zone substations were off initially, effectively meaning from Bluff to Kingston and Te Anau across to Tokonui (excluding the Invercargill city area) was without power.
Just over 24 hours after the storm, The Power Company Limited Network (Southland) had 17,800 customers still without power and one week later, there were still 2,820 customers in Southland who remained out. Full restoration took just over two weeks due to the extent of the damage.
The immediate focus was on power restoration to critical areas like essential infrastructure (cell towers, wastewater, water and healthcare services), followed by dairy farms due to animal welfare concerns.
Mr Blue said the power restoration was a massive effort, including PowerNet staff and electricity industry colleagues from around the country, supported by contractors and suppliers.
While the storm took a huge toll on the network infrastructure, he couldn’t have been more impressed with the response of staff who were fully committed to restoring power and the community who were not only patient, but also incredibly kind towards PowerNet staff.
“The reality is we’re likely to get more of these types of weather events and we need to look at improving resiliency, particularly around management of trees near power lines. More than 90% of outages were from falling trees and this could have been avoided.
“Responsibility for managing trees is the owner’s responsibility, but we are also looking for Central Government to strengthen the rules around this.”
By the numbers:
Wind speeds up to 104 km/h
Wind gusts reaching 164 km/h
The Power Company Limited network (Southland) Total Customers: 38,200
| Date | Customers without power |
| 24 October | 17,800 |
| 25 October | 12,000 |
| 26 October | 8,000 |
| 27 October | 6,250 |
| 28 October | 4,800 |
| 29 October | 3,400 |
| 30 October (one week after storm) | 2,820 |
| 31 October | 1,900 |
| 1 November | 1,290 |
| 2 November | 845 |
| 3 November | 260 |
| 4 November | 115 |
| 6 November | 22 |
