“The dust was still rising off the broken pole when we came to a stop, that's how close we were to it.”
He notified police and put on a high-viz vest to stop traffic at one end of the road closure.
Police arrived to take care of the traffic at the other end and the FENZ volunteers from Tokomaru Bay turned up to direct traffic at Mr Gomm's side of the closure.
He and his wife headed back to Gisborne glad they had not been on that section of the highway a few moments earlier.
It was not known what caused the tree to fall as it was not very windy at the time.
“The power outage that resulted affected the area north of Tokomaru Bay, including Waipiro Bay and Te Puia Springs,” an Eastland Network spokeswoman said.
“There were about 135 customers without power for about two hours and another 18 were out until about 6pm.”
Faults staff will have to carry out further repairs in the next few days.
“There will be 18 local customers affected when that shutdown occurs. We will post notification of it on our Facebook page before it happens.”
n A car hit a power pole at Mohaka last night and power was to be out to Mohaka, Raupunga and Kotemaori from 11am to 3pm today.
The crash happened at about 9.15pm.
Eastland Network turned off the electricity and removed the pole safely. They were able to restore power temporarily just after midnight.
“Today, we need to shut the power off for that 11am-3pm period while our crews install a new pole and reconnect the lines.”
