“They required resetting and restoring once the root cause was identified, and the majority of our systems were fully restored on the Friday night.”
The region’s streetlights are controlled by one of Electra’s control room systems, so it was shortly after sunset at 5.15pm that the company became aware streetlights had been impacted, said the spokesperson.
“By 6.30pm we had confidence that out IT team were very close to restoring the control system and we started to bring streetlights back on progressively across the Horowhenua and Kāpiti districts just before 7.30pm.”
The spokesperson said the outage was caused by an external software provider, meaning there was no impact to any other electricity service.
“Nor was there any other compromise of Electra’s IT systems or breaches of data privacy. Customers were still able to contact us on 0800 lostpower or via our Electra outage app and website.”
Electra chief executive Geoff Douch said the company responded quickly.
“We have strong emergency response and business continuity plans in place within our business, including manual workarounds for critical processes which, ironically, we had run an exercise on last week. I am incredibly proud of how the whole team responded during this unusual event.”
Jacinta Straker, group manager organisation performance at Horowhenua District Council, said council staff were aware of the streetlight outage as it happened.
“Horowhenua District Council was at this time already working through impacts of the outage on its critical services and diligently addressing the issue to ensure that our critical drinking water, wastewater and stormwater services were maintained.”
Several council services were impacted by the outage, not just streetlights, she said.
“Our facilities such as aquatics, Te Takeretanga o kura-hau-pō, and Te Awahou Nieuwe Stroom experienced disruptions. Personal computers that allow us to operate service desks and front counter services were restored within these facilities prior to their scheduled opening hours on Saturday.”
While residents had been advised by council staff that there may be interruptions to public computers at both Te Takeretanga o kura-hau-pō and Te Awahou Nieuwe Stroom over the weekend, when they were tested prior to the opening of the facilities on the Saturday they were all functional, she said.
The majority of staff devices across council sites were restored by Sunday, with the remaining devices restored on Monday morning.
It was thanks to a team effort across several agencies that critical services weren’t impacted for long, she said.
“We would like to extend our heartfelt thanks to Electra, Horowhenua District Council IT Team, Horowhenua Alliance and partners who worked tirelessly over the weekend to find solutions to the critical services impacted. Their skill and dedication allowed us to successfully restore services. Our IT team and partners restored our SCADA software promptly, enabling us to remotely operate and monitor all our water and wastewater treatment plants. Their quick response and expertise have been instrumental in managing this situation. We thank them all for their mahi.”
There was no breach of resident or customer data in the incident, she said.
“The issue stemmed from external software [Crowdstrike]. Our focus has been on ensuring the integrity and security of our critical infrastructure.”
Residents should contact the customer service team to report any issues with services provided or supported by council via phone on 06 366 0999 or email: enquiries@horohenua.govt.nz or by using the free Antenno app available from both Google Play and the App Store, she said.
Ilona Hanne is a Taranaki-based journalist and news director who covers breaking and community news from across the region. She has worked for NZME since 2011.
