Cyclone Dovi aftermath: 300 trees down around Auckland and tens of thousands of people were still without power this morning

Crews are working tirelessly today to restore power to tens of thousands of homes and to clean up debris left around the country almost 24 hours after Cyclone Dovi knocked down trees and caused havoc in the North Island.

Auckland Council received nearly 300 reports of downed trees, 240 of these incidents had already been attended to by this morning by Auckland Emergency Management workers apart of the clean-up efforts.

Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of people were without power yesterday and many are still without the luxury of running water and electricity while repairs continue throughout today.

"On Sunday we had 12 crews on the ground attending to callouts across the region to ensure the most critical incidents, such as those involving cars, houses or blocked roads, were responded to promptly," said Auckland mayor Phil Goff.

"Crews have been working long hours to ensure roads and streets were made safe, and that power is restored as quickly as possible. Thank you to all staff involved in the response for your hard work in some tough and challenging conditions."

In Auckland, 6000 Vector customers still didn't have power this morning, including 1000 on island communities such as Kawau and Waiheke and those in the north and west of Auckland, including areas such as Riverhead, Stillwater and Piha.

Just before midday Vector's numbers had dropped to 5000 customers without power.

Vector general manager of operations and maintenance Marko Simunac said today's focus was on completing the restoration of the backbone of the network because it was the fastest way to get power back on for large numbers of households.

"We know people have been without power for some time now and we are doing our best to fix the damage to the network as fast as we safely can. We have increased our available resources in the areas most impacted to help clear remaining power outages."

Once the backbone of the network was prepared, Vector would be able to go back to providing approximate times of restoration for specific outages via its website.

"We would again like to thank Aucklanders for their patience so far and reassure them we are working around the clock to restore power to all our customers," Simunac said.

Counties Energy also had a "huge number" of smaller faults to repair today after Cyclone Dovi "gave the network a kicking".

Just before midday there were still 1100 properties still without power and some privately owned service lines could remain down for a second night.

The areas currently without power include Onewhero, Pukekawa, Waikaretu, Naike, Glen Murray and Mercer.

This damage is mainly from the high winds and trees and branches falling on lines.

"By tomorrow we hope to have everyone back, however there may be a few who, due to terrain, the complexity of the fix due to large trees blocking the way, will take longer," a Counties Energy spokeswoman said.

Top Energy is also trying to restore power to 1200 customers, down from the 1700 at yesterday's peak.

"Parts of our network are in difficult and remote areas that will need to be accessed by foot. This will take time so please bear with us," a statement on its Facebook page said.

"We understand it has been a hard night for many and some of you have been without power for over a day."

It hoped to have full power restored today.

Almost 1400 households across Northland are still without power.

As of 10am on Monday Far North lines company Top Energy was still working to fix 20 outages affecting about 1200 households and businesses — down from 17,000 at the height of the storm.

The vast majority of outages were caused by trees falling onto power lines.

The biggest outages remaining in the Far North are in the Kaingaroa area, east of Awanui, with 318 households, and North Hokianga with 178 households.

Those faults were expected to be repaired by 4pm today.

In Whangārei and Kaipara, lines company Northpower was still dealing with nine outages affecting 175 households, down from a peak of 6000.

Residents around the Waikato are also still waiting for power to come back on after a night unplugged.

Wel Networks said there were still 4000 homes without power, down from 7000 homes last night.

It is warning there will be lengthy restorations times due to the complexity of the damage the network has sustained.

Those areas still without power included Glenview, Te Mata, Whatawhata, Glen Massey, Ngaruawahia, Taupiri and Whitikahu.

Wel Networks general manager asset management Mat O'Neill said Cyclone Dovi had affected its entire network in Waikato as well as its two small embedded networks in Auckland and Cambridge.

Wel Networks' teams had a big day planned today to restore power as quickly and safely as possible.

Those further down the North Island are also without power.

About 14,000 of Powerco's customers still don't have power including 6391 in Taranaki, 3053 in Bay of Plenty and 2595 in the Coromandel, Thames, Waihi and South Waikato, Hundreds of customers in Whanganui, Manawatū and the Wairarapa are also still in the dark.

Powerco network operations manager Scott Horniblow said teams were working as quickly as they could to clear debris and restore power.

"Conditions were very challenging at times yesterday, making it unsafe to scale ladders and carry out reconnection work. As winds started dying down yesterday afternoon we were able to continue into the evening with restoration work, and we're picking up again this morning."

Planned maintenance outages across Powerco's network have been postponed so they could focus on restoring the network.