A woman was pinned to her lounge chair when a tree crashed through the roof of her Kaitaia home, amid widespread storm chaos that wiped power to more than 26,000 properties and is expected to whip Auckland and Northland until tonight.

Around 11,000 homes are without power across Auckland this morning as the gales battering the region continues.

Almost 17,000 customers were cut off from their electricity supply at the height of the storm, Vector said.

The worst affected areas are in Te Atatu, Helensville, Takanini, Waiheke and Muriwai.While Whenupai, Coatesville, Helensville, Takanini, Whangaripo, Waiwera, South Head, Muriwai, Tapora, the Kaipara hills and Kaukapakapa are also experiencing outages.

Trees, branches and debris were responsible, Vector said, striking power lines or bringing the lines down.

“As predicted, the winds worsened overnight and these winds are expected to remain strong through to 1pm this afternoon,” the lines company said.

“Vector’s extra crews and support staff have been working hard overnight to ensure power in these areas can be restored but these efforts are being hampered by remaining strong winds.

“Safety of our crews and the public is of paramount importance, so please take care in these adverse conditions. Crews will not continue working if conditions are unsafe.

“Large outages would be dealt with first, followed by the smaller outage areas.It warned people to stay away from downed lines, and to immediately report them.

Click here to view the current power outages.

– nzherald