Roading contractors and arborists say there aren't enough hours in the day to clean up as they tackle the aftermath of Cyclone Dovi.
Winds of up to 130km/h packed a punch on Sunday during the weather chaos, creating extra work for panelbeaters, councils and contractors alike.
"There's trees pretty much everywhere and the further you drive out it's very similar to a tornado where certain areas are fine, and then you go down a street and it's just fallen to pieces," says Joseph Sturdy, an arborist from Cambridge's Sherwood Forestry.
The cyclone caused widespread power outages. On Monday evening, all but 5000 homes in greater Auckland had power back on but several thousand more across the central North Island were still waiting.
Auckland power authority Vector said its priority was restoring hospitals, medical centres and rest homes.
"Repairs are well underway across the region and we are making good progress in restoring the backbone of the network, which means more people get their power restored more quickly," Vector operations and maintenance general manager Marko Simunac said.
"We have also this morning begun assigning crews to focus on the smaller clusters of houses with damage to the low voltage network.
"In some cases, individual households may have suffered damaged to their service line, which is the power line that connects their house to the network. These lines are the home owner's responsibility to repair and, while our crews may make some repairs to these if they are straight forward, we will not prioritise individual service lines ahead of network repairs."
Simunac said Vector would communicate directly with its affected customers regarding power restoration times.
While the weather has calmed down on Monday anyone with big trees on their property should be careful over the following days because branches could still come down.
Waka Kotahi NZTA has cleared most major roads but warns some smaller ones might take longer.
Thankfully the worst of Cyclone Dovi has passed and so too has the unbearable humidity for Auckland.
"Ex-Tropical Cyclone Dovi has now dissolved and joined into an area of low pressure well to our southeast. We still have southerly winds for the North Island but they will ease across the day with showers becoming restricted to eastern regions overnight," WeatherWatch says.
Much of the North Island can expect occasional showers and sunny patches. And it's a cold start for many in the south island.
"A cold start for inland areas, there may even be a light frost about inland Alpine areas. Mostly sunny for the West Coast, any morning cloud clears about Southland and Otago then mostly sunny, some high cloud pushes northwards during the day," WeatherWatch said.
"Canterbury has morning cloud, a few coastal showers clear then sunny areas increase from the afternoon. Any morning cloud and showers clear Nelson and Marlborough then mostly sunny. Winds are light in the west and about the far south, further north expect southerlies (a little breezy about coastal parts in the east at first) to ease during the day."
