Nearly 30,000 households are without power in Northland and the Far North amid Cyclone Gabrielle, with people warned they could be without electricity for a week.

Northpower said on Monday morning there were about 18,500 households without power and the company expected that number to grow as the day went on.

Top Energy said 10,500 households were without power in the Far North.

Northpower and Top Energy had been working to restore power where possible but with winds gusting over 140kph, it hadn’t always been safe to do so, Northland Civil Defence reported on Monday morning.

More than 55 of the main high voltage lines had been damaged – about half the network, Northpower said.

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“We have not seen this level of damage since Cyclone Bola in 1988,” a spokesperson said.

“Those households affected by an outage will continue to be without power over the coming days, and in some cases a week,” a spokesperson said.

An image from the Northpower control room showed the extent of damage at 6am Monday.

All lines in white, yellow or green were out of action.

“We are continuing to work to make sure things are safe, by isolating the electricity supply from the damaged lines. It is not safe or possible to begin to repair most of the issues until the wind abates.”

Some of the damage would require rebuilding and the initial scoping and planning work had already begun, Northpower said.

Meanwhile, all planned work had been cancelled so staff could respond to the impacts of Cyclone Gabrielle.

In an update, Northland Civil Defence said Fire and Emergency responded overnight to several fallen trees and downed power lines, with a small number of roofs lifting and sheds being blown down.

“The combination of lower barometric pressure and storm surge has bought flooding to a number of coastal locations and there have also been reports of boats being blown ashore,” they said.

Far North district mayor Moko Tepania told TVNZ’s Breakfast 33 Far North settlements were without power on Monday morning, with only main centres including Kaikohe and Kerikeri unaffected by outages.

The biggest concerns for the region were the possibility of longstanding power cuts and the potential isolation of communities, he said.

“They might not have power, but we’ve got to make sure they’ve got enough food and water so that will be one of our main concerns.”

Tepania urged residents to stay home and avoid unnecessary travel.

Rainfall has been heavy but most of the rivers were coping, Northland Civil Defence said.

Most of the rain so far had fallen on the east coast, from Kaeo in the north to the Brynderwyns in the south.

The highest totals over the 30 hours from 9pm on Saturday to 3am Monday had been near Whangārei.

There was:

• 188mm recorded by the regional council’s Glenbervie rain gauge
• 174mm at Water St in Whangarei
• 146mm recorded at Puhipuhi.

“However, as the centre of the low pressure system moves closer throughout the day, this is likely to result in even higher tides than we have had so far,” Northland Civil Defence said.

“The next high tides for Whangārei are about 12.45pm today, and then about 1.00am tomorrow morning. High tide on the Northern Wairoa at Dargaville has just passed at about 4.30am.”

Meanwhile, SH1 between Brynderwyn and Waipu remained closed due to large slips, with previous detours back in place as of Monday morning.

Light vehicles may detour via Kaiwaka and Mangawhai, while heavy vehicles must detour via SH12/SH14 (via Dargaville).

Further road closures were likely.