Welcome to The Spinoff’s live updates for Monday, February 13 – bringing you the latest news on Cyclone Gabrielle’s arrival to New Zealand. On deck: Stewart Sowman-Lund, with support from our entire news team.
Get in touch via stewart@thespinoff.co.nz
What you need to know
- Cyclone Gabrielle has arrived in New Zealand. A live visualisation is above.
- Nine North Island regions have now declared states of emergency, including Auckland, Northland and Waikato. The latest was Bay of Plenty at 8pm.
- Auckland officials have held two briefings today – the latest details can be found here.
- PM Chris Hipkins is in Auckland, and has chaired cabinet remotely. The government will offer $11.5m to flood-stricken regions to deal with any impacts of Cyclone Gabrielle.
- The latest from Northland – which has been hit ‘pretty hard’ – can be found here.
- The latest from Thames/Coromandel — which is now experiencing its fifth extreme weather of the year — can be found here.
- Thousands remain without power, with about 55,000 households in the dark overall. In Auckland, that number has jumped to 22,000 as of 6.30pm.
- Rail closures extended, some in South Island; Interislander sailings cancelled.
- Dozens of flights have been impacted but Air NZ will resume these earlier than expected.