Thousands left without power after storm

Unison crews joined other residents who tackled flooded roads and debris as the rain continued to fall /Photo supplied

Over a thousand Unison customers were without power in "mainly rural" parts of Hastings and Napier.

Unison relationship and customer care manager Danny Gough said crews attended up to 500 customers in Hastings and 250 in Napier this morning, but the numbers increased throughout the day.

98 Eastland Network customers were also affected in Wairoa.

"It's nothing really major, just lots of smaller ones that requires are crews to move from one job to the next," Gough said.

"We've made good progress but then we have had other outages occurring, so the guys have certainly had a very busy day in very challenging conditions too."

Gough urged people to stay away from downed power lines and to report any to Unison.

Crews were able to speed up fixing power issues throughout this afternoon as the weather began to ease.

"It's been a hectic day for the crews, we've been getting a lot of pictures with flooded rivers, streams, flooded roads, trees across roads and slips."

Around 75 customers were still without power around the Napier area, including Patoka and Tangoio.

Gough said around 50 customers around the Crownthorpe area of Hastings were also still without power, but crews were hopeful to get it back on by this evening.

"We really appreciate the patience and support from members of the public, it's been very well received by our team. The good feedback we've had from people has been really well received by our crews who are working hard to get the power back on," he said.