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__AUCKLAND UNPLUGGED .|. page 2 of 2

Now, however, at the end of the second week of the crisis, the city is bouncing back. With a vast influx of industrial generators trucked, railed and flown in from all over the country, small businesses have reopened and are catering to customers as best they can.

Blackout Sale signs are everywhere, some featuring novel pitches: Hairdressers offer haircuts by candlelight. Jewelry shops post banners boasting the brightness of their diamonds. The cappuccino imbibers, although depleted in number, grin and sip above the din of generators in cafes that once again offer a Warm Welcome with their Hot Coffee.

Camping stores do well; flashlights and gas stoves leap off the shelves. And down on Fort Street, the central city's red light district, the hookers are complaining only about the lack of customers. As masseuse Charlotte says, "We can do most of our work in the dark."

On the uncontrolled streets, it would not have been unreasonable to expect anarchy from Auckland's drivers, whose reputation for road rage and rudeness runs a hot second to New York cabbies. Miraculously, road manners seem to have returned in some collective agreement to keep the city moving. Hard as it is to believe for those who do daily battle behind the wheel, one driver was reported to have actually waved a courier van through an intersection, and (although this is unconfirmed) the van driver was heard to yell, "Thanks, mate!"

While the early stages of a crisis like this bring out the fighting spirit of a young country of pioneers and rekindles the postwar rationing spirit that is second nature to a generation, others cannot cope.

Inner city resident Laylah Reynolds moved to New Zealand from California 15 years ago and lives on the ninth floor of an uptown apartment block. Things are not good for Laylah. Her 15-year-old daughter, Athena, is a chronic asthmatic and cannot risk the hike up the stairs. It would at best leave her breathless; at worst it could kill her. Athena has had to move out to the suburbs to stay with relatives.

Says Laylah, "People say life goes on despite the power crisis, but it doesn't. Life here has stopped."

Laylah is without lighting. Air conditioning, hot water and refrigeration are no use as electricity arrives only in sporadic doses. She's desperately seeking somewhere to stay, and is appealing for help. "I have lost my daughter and my dignity," she says. "I don't feel I can go on living like this."

Lunch bars and gift shops and news agents who rely on the passing trade of city workers to keep them afloat are pleading with bank managers to extend their credit, applying to the government for emergency loans and hiring lawyers, on credit, to get them out of this crippling dilemma.

A heavyweight Australian legal firm has arrived to back two Auckland solicitors in bringing a multimillion-dollar class action suit against Mercury Energy, which may offer small businesses some hope.

For some, though, all hope is gone, and with it their business.

Auckland will cope with, and survive, this short-term crisis. While the villains of the piece, Mercury, sweat around the clock to repair cables and erect an overhead line along the southern rail corridor, a coastal container vessel, the Union Rotorua, has been brought alongside to plug its generation capacity into the main grid and provide about 10 percent of the city's electricity requirement.

The anger seething below the surface is palpable. Heads will undoubtedly roll in the middle and upper management of the trustee-run energy company, on its board and maybe into the ranks of the government. The minister of energy, Max Bradford, is not immune and the buck may eventually stop on his desk.

Corporate New Zealand, ever mindful of the need to attract overseas investment, is fuming at what this display of incompetence is doing to the perception of this Pacific Rim business capital as it hurtles toward the new millennium.

Organizers of the biggest events Auckland has ever hosted -- the world leaders' summit in 1999 and the America's Cup in 2000 -- are sweating over the security of the electricity supply and demanding answers.

Explanations for the crisis are deeply rooted -- perhaps as deep as three administrations ago, when New Zealand committed itself to privatizing state-owned assets such as power supply companies. Critics say that the headlong pursuit of bottom-line profits, which have been abundant in privatized industries, has been at the expense of maintenance, sustainability and security of supply.

Mayor Mills, a former Olympian already embroiled in controversy over an unpopular multibillion-dollar transport center and his recent public opposition to the city's gay and lesbian Hero Parade, is facing a new barrage of questions about the rotting infrastructure of his city.

Time is running out to deal with clogged motorways, a lack of efficient public transport, a century-old stormwater system that allows raw sewage to flow into the sparkling harbor and an unreliable water supply. Aucklanders want answers, and if the noise of the generators ever quiets, a rising tide of voices may well be heard, calling for revenge.
SALON | March 12, 1998

Cameron Williamson is a newspaper journalist and photographer in Auckland whose work has appeared in the Observer, the London Evening Standard, the New Zealand Herald and Adventure magazine. He is currently involved in the torchlight pursuit of good coffee and cheesecake on the dark streets of his hometown.

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