A Titirangi family only had a chilly bin to try to keep food cool after losing power for 11 days following Cyclone Gabrielle.
A Titirangi family only had a chilly bin to try to keep food cool after losing power for 11 days following Cyclone Gabrielle.
A young family with baby twins were left without power for 11 days and resorted to “living out of a chilly bin” after Cyclone Gabrielle brought down a tree down near their house.
Jean Paul Pinto and his partner say they were at “breaking point” caring for their twins under the age of 1 in the West Auckland suburb of Titirangi after a massive tree on Atkinson Rd brought down their and a neighbour’s power supply.
Pinto told the Herald on Saturday he had made more than 20 calls to Vector since February 14 and found every interaction lacking “transparency” and full of “false hope”.
A Vector worker reattached power to Pinto’s home on February 25, but the frustration has still not quite worn off.
Pinto said the tree falling was not unexpected, claiming he had raised concerns with Auckland Council about it in September.
Pinto said the council told him nothing could be done “unless there was serious danger or loss of life”.
The power cut meant the family had to throw all their food out after stocking up - which they were originally advised to do - suffering a substantial financial hit.
Homes in Titirangi lost power after a tree brought down the powerlines on Atkinson Rd during Cyclone Gabrielle.
Jean Paul Pinto and his family had to throw out large amounts of food after they lost power to their home.
“The guy from Vector came yesterday knocking on the door and she couldn’t even speak to him, she just broke down in tears,” Pinto said.
Their neighbours, the only other home on the street without power, had to move out, struggling to get by while also providing for a young family.
Pinto was on the phone with Vector every day - “sometimes twice a day”.
“I understand they have a lot of jobs on but this has gone on too long. The communication is not very consistent. They told my partner they would be in last Saturday or Sunday to fix it up, and nobody showed up. When I called, they had their same old story of no ETA.”
He thought Vector had forgotten about them, he said. But on Saturday, about 4pm, someone had shown up to begin restoring power.
A Vector spokesman said they understood the difficulty of being without power for so long and being unable to make plans because of uncertainty about when it would be restored.
Pinto says it wasn’t unexpected the tree in question came down during the cyclone as he had raised concerns to Auckland Council about it in September.
“Our crews have been working around the clock for nearly two weeks to help people and are committed to reaching everyone as soon as they can. This hasn’t been a straightforward process, with extremely difficult and changeable circumstances, including yesterday’s bad weather that hampered efforts in various parts of the Auckland region,” the spokesman said.
“Due to the amount of damage to the network following Cyclone Gabrielle, it has unfortunately not been possible to provide certainty over restoration times in all cases. As work has progressed new faults have been found, which has sometimes affected restoration times.
“We know our customers want as much information as possible about their individual circumstances, and so we have published details on our website about when work will be completed in certain areas, updated each day. We accept that in this case, our customer was looking for more information than we were able to provide and we acknowledge how frustrating that is.”
The toppled tree has led to residents feeling the strain as they struggled for days without power.
