Hopes Auckland is through the worst of the wild weather but black outs across the North Island are keeping power crews busy this morning.

Fire crews in Auckland and Northland dealt with 131 weather-related incidents from six o'clock last night, to 6am this morning.

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4500 people are without power in the Auckland region - half of those have been off the grid since midnight.

Most outages are in rural areas north of Auckland city, and many of these power cuts have been caused by winds blowing tree branches onto power lines.

 

Nearly 2000 homes and businesses are without power in Northland.

In Whitianga around 250 properties are still without power, after more than 9000 in the area went off the grid just after 6.30 this morning.

A Remuera family had a lucky escape this morning after a 20m tree fell from their neighbours' property into their backyard. (Photo / Ashleigh Tonkin)

Auckland Civil Defence director John Dragicevich told Tim Dower rain and strong winds have now eased.

He says people who have been battered from one side will now likely be battered from the other as the storm has changed its course.

"The wind direction has changed 180 degrees, it's now moved to the north-west from the north-east so that's puts less risk to the busy seeward side of the Auckland coastline."

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Auckland's waterfront has also re-opened but the water's still high and winds are whipping sand up off the beach.

Part of Tamaki Drive was closed last night after it flooded because of an unusually high tide and strong winds.

Lucy Byrne works at Cafe on Kohi at Kohimarama Beach.

She says it's very windy, and the sea water is over the beach and nearly on the road.

"Bins flying over, lots of rubbish and dirt all over the road and sand is flying off the beach."