Wild weather impacts small businesses as power cuts hit at busiest time

One petrol station has reported losing $5000 worth of business as a result of a power outage from the storm. Photo/Dean Purcell.

Small businesses across Auckland have been hit by power outages and are now assessing the damage from last night's storm.

Taral Patel, the owner of the Price Cutter dairy in Northcross on the North Shore, said he normally opened at 6am but without power he was unable to make sales with the Eftpos machine down.

The power had come back on by 7.30am but by then he had lost an hour and a half of trading.

"The first couple of hours are the busiest of the day."

Patel said the shop had lost power just before 9am last night but fortunately the temperatures were low overnight so it wouldn't result in any fridge or freezer items having to be thrown out.

Patel said power cuts didn't happen very often so he didn't have a back up generator for the shop.

He estimated he had probably lost around $750 to $800 worth of trading but said it would not be worth claiming on his insurance because the excess was $1000 alone.

"It is not worth it," he said.

The power coming back on was a big relief especially as he had rung Vector and the company's outage service had indicated it would not be back on until 6pm.

A Z gas station located at a Northcross intersection had no power from 10pm last night and was only reconnected at 6am this morning.

Station manager Anirudh Hooda said the wild weather had severely impacted the business, which had lost approximately $5000 worth of fuel sales and $500 worth of pies, sausage rolls and hot food that had to been thrown out.

"Normally we have a morning rush, but we didn't this morning," Hooda said.

The entire Northcross area and adjacent block of shops on the street had faced a lengthy power outage, he said.

"I was even asking customers and even they didn't have power at their home."

Hooda said it was a relief that customers had been understanding about the situation.

But others said they were still waiting to find out the impact of the storm.

Michael Barnett, chief executive of the Auckland Chamber of Commerce, said he hadn't heard from any businesses yet but noted there was a lot of debris around the central city area.

"I think there is going to be a lot travel issues, but that's nothing new for Auckland," he said.

A spokesman for Fonterra said it wasn't aware of any disruptions that would stop milk-tankers from getting through to farms but expected to get an update around 8.30am.