The Raetihi community can be reassured that its drinking water supply remains safe and uninterrupted after the town’s Water Treatment Plant sustained a direct lightning strike earlier today during intense thunderstorms sweeping across the North Island.
The plant; located on an elevated site overlooking the township – absorbed the full impact of the strike, which caused only minor damage to instrumentation and briefly disrupted some automated systems. Despite the dramatic incident, the plant continued to operate effectively throughout.
Thanks to 24 hours of on-site water storage, residents experienced no interruption in supply at any stage.
Council’s water services contractor, Veolia, responded immediately to the strike. Their team restored key operational functions within approximately an hour, mainly through replacing blown electrical fuses and stabilising affected equipment.
Although the lightning strike disabled some of the reservoir level instrumentation and remote monitoring capability, Veolia has confirmed that:
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Core treatment processes remain fully operational
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Water quality and filtration systems are functioning as normal
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There is no risk to the safety or reliability of Raetihi’s drinking water
To ensure continuous oversight, Veolia has established alternative monitoring methods, including manual checks of reservoir levels. These are standard contingency procedures and are routinely used in situations where automation is temporarily unavailable.
Veolia crews continue to work on restoring all monitoring and electronic systems to full functionality. The Council will issue further updates if required, but at this stage, the incident has caused minimal disruption thanks to swift response efforts and robust system redundancies.
Despite the dramatic nature of the lightning strike, the event highlights the resilience of Raetihi’s water infrastructure and the capability of Veolia’s response teams to maintain uninterrupted service even under extreme weather conditions.
Residents can remain confident that the town’s drinking water supply remains safe, stable, and secure.
