A scheduled three days of intermittent power cuts is going ahead in Ōhakune despite a safety notice requiring people to boil water in the Central Plateau town.
Photo: 123RF
About 180 properties will be affected by the mid-winter maintenance cuts, but Ruapehu District Council is assuring residents they will have enough drinking water and will not be left without electricity in the evenings.
Days of heavy rain stirred up the region's drinking water, prompting the council to issue a boil notice on Monday.
Lines Company TLC is going ahead with work it had planned on the network, which will leave 180 Ōhakune properties without electricity at certain times during the day.
Council chief executive Clive Manley said there had been a few complaints from people who could not see why the work could not wait until the water was safe to drink.
The company wanted to get the work done during the school holidays so it would not affect a local school.
"You couldn't get a worse timing for them and I certainly feel for the properties who are impacted by both. But ... the outages are only for a short duration and it is
during the day," Mr Manley said.
"Having a pre-planned outage coinciding with a weather-event-initiated water safety notice is very unusual and rare.
"Both organisations have been working to ensure that everyone affected has access to either bottled drinking water or the power outage information to allow them to boil enough water to cover any outage windows."
TLC said it would have bottled water available on the corner of Ruapehu Road and Shannon Street for anyone who needed it.
A council spokesperson said staff were also available to help anyone in need.
