This photo shows the front of the queue at the foot of the harbour bridge after it was closed. Motorcyclists rest against the barrier. Photo / Antony Gray
Dianne Weissenborn was seconds away from getting on to the Auckland Harbour Bridge when she noticed the traffic management vehicle in front of her was signalling she had to stop.
The normally quick trip over the bridge, from her home in Takapuna, would instead result in a more than two-hour trip into work at Penrose.
"If I was 30 seconds faster, I would've made it onto the bridge," she said.
"I was right at the front. I just missed it."
Weissenborn ended up sitting in her car for about an hour - among the hundreds of motorists who found themselves stuck around the bridge when high winds forced its closure just before 7am.
"I sent a photo to my husband telling him I'd just missed getting onto the bridge.
"It was a lovely view though," she laughed.
"I just felt sorry for the motorcyclists who were in the front with me - it was pouring with rain at one point."
She arrived at her workplace just before 8.30am after leaving the house at 6.10am.
She usually arrives in the office with more than enough time to spare before her 7am start.
Meanwhile, Philip Adamson was the last vehicle to get over the bridge before it was closed - just managing to pass the NZTA truck laying down the "road closed" barrier sign.
"I was the last one across this morning - split-second timing!"
Adamson's Tesla - with its surround cameras - captured the moment the bridge closed at 6.46am.
"It was three lanes [open] and then two and then one. And just as I came up to the truck, the road closed sign was coming down.
"I just thought: 'Oh, I better get past this' and accelerated past.
"I made it to work just before 7am and was the only one in the office," he laughed.
The bridge was reduced to one lane heading towards the city centre around 6.30am, before a call was made to close it completely just before 7am.
Around that time, gusts on the bridge had reached up to 95km/h, the MetService said.
Photos taken by local resident Antony Gray show an eerie look at the usually bustling harbour bridge - instead pictured totally empty, save for the orange road cones dotted about.
One photo, sent to the Herald, shows several motorcyclists seated on their bikes waiting just behind the bridge traffic management truck.
They are later pictured off their bikes and leaning against the barrier.
The closure comes just over a week after a strut at the top of the bridge was badly damaged when a freak gust of up to 127km/h tipped a truck on to it.
The strut was temporarily repaired last Wednesday.
A permanent fixture is not expected to be completed until "several weeks", the NZTA says.
Transport authorities have been saying for the past few days that they would be prepared to close the bridge if strong winds reached up to 80km/h or higher.
Despite the bridge being reopened around 8am, the Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency warned commuters that there was still a possibility the bridge would be closed at short notice again today.
Meteorologist Georgina Griffiths said winds would sit just under or around the 80km/h throughout the day.
She said it would be "touch and go" and that forecasters would be monitoring the conditions very closely.
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