The water emergency map on the NPDC website shows the areas with normal supply (green), limited supply (yellow) and normal supply unavailable (red).

New Plymouth is in the grip of a water shortage crisis.

Severe water restrictions are in place for New Plymouth and outlying towns, water must be boiled before being drunk and thousands of residents are being asked to avoid flushing their toilets.

New Plymouth District Council staff and volunteers are currently distributing letters to around 26,000 properties from New Plymouth to Urenui with a water update.

At 8.39pm on Wednesday night Taranaki Civil Defence sent out an emergency alert message to mobile phones about New Plymouth district's water issues.

A Civil Defence emergency alert message about the restrictions was sent out at 8.39pm on Wednesday night.

Sacred Heart Girls' College in New Plymouth has already decided to remain closed on Thursday and numerous other schools are expected to make similar announcements on or before Thursday morning.

Damage to a water pipe caused by a falling tree on Tuesday night has severely limited the supply of water in the district. It is hoped the supply will restored on Friday but the boil water order will remain in place for a week.

(file photo) New Plymouth District Council staff and volunteers are distributing letters to around 26,000 properties from New Plymouth to Urenui with a water update.

READ MORE:

* Schools close as water restrictions are put in place

* Water restrictions hit cafes, hairdressers

* Trampolines fly, roofs lifted, trees and signs felled by storm winds

The supply of water to residents in eastern part of the New Plymouth district from Huatoki Stream to Urenui has been severely compromised.

As well as being asked to avoid showers, like everyone else, they have also been requested to avoid flushing their toilets, unless with water already in their pipes.

SIMON O'CONNOR/STUFF Residents are allowed just five litres per person.

They have also been asked to use their own emergency supplies of water before sourcing more water from council tankers.

Water tankers stationed at Bell Block, Waitara, Lepperton and New Plymouth were offering affected residents five litres of water each for drinking and cooking from 3pm on Wednesday. They would remain there until 9pm.

At 4pm the New Plymouth District Council said it was working on getting a raw water supply to schools for flushing toilets, and for boiling for consumption.

SIMON O'CONNOR/STUFF Water tankers are supplying residents with safe drinking water in Bell Block.

All big water users have been asked to stop using water.



Supermarkets were running out of bottled water on Wednesday afternoon and some only had sparkling, flavoured water left.

Pak'n Save posted on their Facebook page that they were set to receive a truckload each day for the rest of the week.

The state of emergency remains in place for New Plymouth District but was lifted for Stratford and South Taranaki at noon on Wednesday.

ANDY JACKSON/STUFF New Plymouth begins to feel the wrath of Cyclone Gita.

Thousands of houses across Taranaki remain without power.

What you need to know:

WATER

Supplied/Craig Jeffrey Huge waves buffeted Port Taranaki's lee breakwater.

New Plymouth residents may have to boil water for the next week after a water main was damaged in Ex-Cyclone Gita.

A boil water notice has been issued for all residents in New Plymouth, Bell Block, Waitara, Tikorangi, Onearo and Urenui.

Damage to the water reticulation network has caused areas of low and non-existent pressure in eastern New Plymouth and townships east of the city, with pressure starting to fail in places.

ANDY JACKSON/STUFF Fishing boats moored in Port Taranaki have not escaped the ravages of ex-Cyclone Gita.

At this stage the water supply is set to be restored on Friday but the council is asking everyone to continue boiling water for the next week.

Water will be available from tankers being deployed in six locations from 3pm to 9pm on Wednesday 21 February and from 6am on Thursday 22 February. The locations are:

o Bell Block: Hickford Park car park (end of Smeaton Rd).

SIMON O'CONNOR/STUFF Stormy weather in New Plymouth

o Bell Block: Bell Block Court, outside The Warehouse.

o Waitara: Outside Waitara Memorial Hall, Memorial Place.

o Waitara: Clifton car park, opposite Waitara High School, Princess Street.

o Lepperton: Outside tennis/bowling club, Manutahi Road

o New Plymouth: Outside Mangorei School, Mangorei Road.

Residents are limited to 5 litres each, and the water is only for drinking and cooking. Residents should continue using their toilets but should not flush them, and should not refill cisterns with water distributed by the tankers.

Teams from Red Cross will be door-knocking in affected areas to ensure that the elderly, the infirm and people with mobility issues have enough water.

The situation will be reviewed on Thursday 22 February as repair works continue on the reticulation network.

Water levels have dropped at NPDC's reservoirs and they cannot guarantee quality levels so they are asking people to boil water for one minute.

All big water users have been asked to stop using water. It is up to businesses to decide if they should shut, however all water must be boiled first before being consumed. NPDC has been communicating with businesses and residents through radio, TV, Facebook, Twitter and their website, which has a water emergency tool.

"NPDC is continuing to invest in water infrastructure and has plans to put more funding into treasuring our water in the Long-Term Plan," Council said. "This was a major weather event and the damaged pipe was a key link taking water to the New Plymouth Water Treatment Plant.

"We have already been asking New Plymouth District residents to conserve water since December and we grateful for their cooperation while we fix this problem."

New Plymouth District Council is asking people to use their emergency water supplies first.

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There is a total ban on using water for gardens or outside washing, with level 4 (crisis) water restrictions in place.

It is not known how many houses have been affected.

The Council said working to fix the pipe was their main priority. They have crews on the ground clearing the site of tree debris and have sourced a new pipe.

"We cannot control the weather and it's impossible to plan for every major weather event but we have contingency plans in place."

POWER

Some homes may be without power for another night due to the extent of the damage, said Powerco Network operations manager Phil Marsh.

Taranaki and Whanganui were the hardest hit by power outages and extra crews have been brought in to complete repairs. At 12.30pm 11,405 homes were still without power across Taranaki.

Marsh said Powerco's electricity network had suffered considerable damage with downed lines a major problem, particularly in Coastal Taranaki.



He could not predict when power could be restored to all customers.



"Our biggest concern is downed lines and the need for everyone to treat them as being live. Please keep yourself, children and animals well away from downed lines and call emergency services immediately.





"Thankfully conditions have calmed down but the damage is spread right around the mountain in Taranaki with faults in almost 30 different areas. Lines, transformers and poles had all been affected."

Tikorangi resident Mike Powick said they lost power about 7.30 or 8.00pm last night.

"If you have a storm and the power goes off you just sort of hang around and wait till it comes back on.

"I don't think it was as windy up here as it was down in Hāwera from what's been reported."

Keryn Simson from Smart Rd Cattery said because they were rural, she needed power for water pumps and her landline phone.

"I'm just lucky I filled up buckets and stuff last night and I had water for the cattery for today," she said. "I've got two buckets left so no showers or anything like that."

ROADS

While gusty winds had brought down branches and debris there had been no road closures or major slips reported, Taranaki Civil Defence and Emergency Management group alternate controller Sue Kelly said.

"The teams are not in danger so they are heading out to do a full assessment in daylight," Kelly said.

SCHOOLS

Schools around the region would self-assess whether it was safe to open on Wednesday and they had systems in place to advise parents.

Kindergarten Taranaki posted on Facebook that all of their associated kindergartens would be closed today due to the storm.

COMMUNICATIONS

There is a widespread Spark and Vodafone outage across the region which means some people are having trouble calling, texting and accessing mobile data services.

​FORECAST

Winds will maintain an average northwesterly speed of 31 kilometres an hour with gusts of 35kmh.

MetService forecasts light rain to start about 4pm and continue through to Thursday afternoon.

The heaviest rain expected to be about 3.5 millimetres between 4am to about 7am Thursday.

The sun is forecast to break through the clouds by Friday.

STATE OF EMERGENCY

Kelly said while there were still concerns for communities without power the region appeared not to have suffered any major damage from the storm.

"Compared to what we think it could have been."

Kelly said the state of emergency remained in place but was under constant review.

A briefing would be held with Americarna representatives, she said.

A Fire and Emergency New Zealand spokesman said Taranaki was the busiest region for firefighters.

"We had more than 300 weather-related callouts."

He said the calls started about 2.30pm on Tuesday and the busiest period was between 3pm and 7pm.

Crews were still cleaning up and would continue today.

"We are expected more calls as people are able to assess the damage in daylight."

The majority of callouts were powerlines coming down or arcing. There were also a few calls to roofs lifting.

New Plymouth police Sergeant Bruce Irvine said the storm had not caused problems for police.

"I'm not aware of any major issues," he said.

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