Households along Taylor Road East at Makarewa, on the outskirts of Invercargill, who were five days and three hours without power and water, were rejoicing when they finally got power back on on Tuesday afternoon.

“We used a bucket to retrieve water from our water tank outside to fill the toilet cisterns and flush,” resident and Invercargill kindy teacher Emma Piggott says.

She took loads of dishes to the kindy to wash on Saturday and little four-year-old son Fletcher was actually enjoying his baths in a bucket in town at Dad’s work.

No storm or power outage was going to stop 4-year-old Fletcher Piggott enjoying his bath, even if it was in a bucket. Photo: Supplied

They’d been cooking on the barbecue and boiling vegetables on top of the fire.

Then on Saturday when her husband went to golf he scored a generator for the neighbourhood.

“Someone he was playing golf with very generously dropped a generator off to us. It made a big difference, even just having lights,” she says.

A neighbour who was away also offered their freezer as spare.

“It’s the organising and admin,” Piggott says, with she and her husband having to work in town each day too.

Neighbours had been a big help. “Our four-year-old was washing his hands and when the water didn’t flow he left the tap fawcett up not realising,” she says.

“I walked into the hall and there was water overflowing out of the basin into the toilet and hallway."

"It took 10 towels to clean it up and my neighbour came and took them all into town and washed them for me.

“Lucky he’s cute. You’ve just got to laugh,” she says.

The Hazley family wrapped up and broke out the camping gear during their extended time off-grid. Photo: Supplied

“We did alright. We’re quite a close community,” neighbouring resident Campbell Hazley, who was equally busy in his role as a fire protection building compliance supervisor, says.

“We sourced a few generators and shared them around the street to run our freezers, running a tank of petrol through the generator then passing it on and rotating.”

Four households used the generator to run their water pump. “We filled the bath tub and used that to flush out our toilets, but food safety was a big thing, so we were very conscious of that and extra careful,” Hazley says.

He broke out the solar camping gear and lights, using their wee off-grid tenting system, so they could charge their phones from that too – that kept his kids 11 and 14 happy.

Family and friends in the city obliged with showers.

At work Hazley had the extra concern that fire alarm systems were running out of power, usually lasting three days.

“We were concerned about some possibly having no protection.” One rest home client needed larger batteries put in to keep their system going.”

The Hazley’s new home was well insulated but only heated by electricity.

“As long as we got two to three hours of sun in the windows and we started earlier with slippers and a jumper we were good.”

A school bus shelter in Makarewa decided to relocate itself - off its piles during the region's recent strong winds. Photo: Supplied

Sunday and Monday required a drive to keep warm.

“I will be keeping an eye out for secondhand generators coming up in the next few weeks,” he says.

A tree had fallen on the power lines feeding their road and with only eight or so households affected they were not such a priority for power to be restored, he says.

It was very nice to have the heat pump going and hot water on Tuesday night, but there wasn’t much time to sit and enjoy that.

“It was a busy night with [pipe] band practice and I was racing out the door,” he says.