Crews working to repair the burst water pipe. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Crews working to repair the burst water pipe. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Some water has been restored to the central city after a burst pipe forced people to work from home.
Wellington Water announced that water has been restored to Queens Wharf, which has allowed some hospitality businesses to reopen.
“As water comes back on, residents and businesses are advised to run a cold tap for a few minutes to remove any possible discolouration and air bubbles in their service pipes.”
The burst pipe has shut off water across a large chunk of Wellington’s CBD, with many areas still affected.
Sable Boutique hair salon owner Anthea Digby-Smith told the Herald she had found a workaround for the water outage, as she is friendly with the salon across the street - which still had its water on.
“We’re just ferrying our clients back and forth and stuff and my wonderful florist who are about two blocks away, we’re using them for bathroom facilities and all our washing of our dishes and our bowls and all the, the whatnot.
“We’re kind of, as best as we can, functioning as normal.”
She said the situation was “completely frustrating”.
“It’s very chaotic at the salon all day and very distracting and, I mean, your clients aren’t getting the service that they normally expect. But our clients they’re just happy to get their hair done more than anything.”
Wellington Water posted on social media this morning that water was off between Waterloo Quay near Whitmore St, all the way through to Jervois Quay near Grey St.
Crews inspecting the damage. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Waring Taylor St, Customhouse Quay, Grey St, and Featherston St are all also affected.
Toilets in these areas are out, as is drinking water. Anyone in the affected zone is asked to leave the area in order to use the toilet and visit the water tankers which are being sent to the area for fresh drinking water.
People are encouraged to bring containers of their own to fill.
WorkSafe’s Wellington office has been closed due to the outage and staff will work from home until it is resolved, a spokesperson confirmed.
Insurance company IAG also has its employees working from home as a result of the outage.
“Earlier today we were advised by Wellington Water that its planned water outage needs to continue. As a consequence, we have asked our Wellington team members to work from home for the rest of the day.”
Bell Gully, on Customhouse, says no one has been sent home, but about eight people have chosen to go home on their own accord.
When Craigs Investment Partners was contacted by NZME, a person from the Nelson office picked up the phone, because “workers in Wellington have all gone home”.
