For pioneering Dacre dairy farmer Bruce Dinnington, who runs a robotic milking shed, the biggest issue was water.

“We coped fine. We have a diesel generator in the cow shed here anyway – six milking robots for 650 cows,” he says.

“All robotic farmers have back up generators."

"Our big issue has been water,” he says.

The bore was situated near his old cow shed on the farm, 800m away.

“That lasted 24 hours before we ran out, I tried to buy water."

"Water carriers were working 24 hours a day as it was so difficult to keep up.”

Their power was restored last Friday night then by mid Saturday morning it went off again.

“They couldn’t find the fault and said they’d be back when they had spare time to find it.”

Bruce Dinnington's cows kept milking through his robotic milking shed thanks to already installed generators. Photo: Supplied

Power was restored several days ago.

By Tuesday Bruce had secured a larger generator for the house so that they could have hot water, whereas they’d been surviving on a small household one until then to run their freezers.

He knew of people who drove to Christchurch to get generators.

“In those first 48 hours the cows can be in trouble."

"The ones who waited were probably in trouble, he says.

Bruce reckons the November winds of 1996/97 were “every bit as devasting” in the south though.

Photo: Supplied

Meanwhile near Matarau, netball umpiring legend Colleen Bond says a huge tree came crashing down on the end of their 16-day horse stables.

Thankfully her son, Lyndon, was offered stable space nearer Gore.

Fortunately, the horse on that end escaped uninjured.

Power was out to the stables.

“We’ve never seen or experienced wind like that wind that came through. It was horrific,” Bond says.

“You couldn’t even see through the rain.”

The horses had to go to Gore or Wyndham tracks to be jogged, but we are very fortunate that a good friend has allowed my son some stable space.

“You just don’t know that’s coming,” she says.

There’s no preparation.