Stillwater Excitement - Tree Down - Power Out

Yesterday we arrived back from 3 days away at a conference, to find that our house had no power.  In Stillwater we're reliant on power for all our services in the house. Even our water is pushed through the pipes, via an electric pump so, no power, no water.

The entire country experienced a huge storm, over Friday night-Saturday morning and, as we drove back to Auckland, evidence of that was apparent all along the way. Coming into Auckland, the heaviest rain hit and cars were forced to slow to a crawl in the almost zero visibility.

Weather being the quirky thing we're used to in this part of the country, by the time we reached home it was sunny again.

We experience frequent power cuts in Stillwater, however we usually don't know the reasons why. Power can suddenly go off for 30 minutes to several hours, and even days at a time. Yesterday's reason was obvious, however.  As soon as we entered our house we could see through the window that a huge tree had fallen and taken power lines with it.

Fire service, police and power company workers were all hurriedly rushing around, traffic cones blocking the road, men up ladders, someone high in a cherry-picker cutting back other branches, and the sound of chain saws rising above it all.

Neighbours were peering out windows, or walking down to take a closer look. Cars coming around the bend were turned back by fire service people, so then there were cars approaching and cars turning into driveway entrances so they could go back, causing even more blockage. 

At the end of the road there's a crucial power pole that serves all of Stillwater.
When it's damaged we all have no power. 
Yesterday, before the power came back on, they were working on it a lot.

What excitement!  In the time we've been here, we've never had so much happening all at once.   I wonder what the ducks thought about it all?