Powerless on the 'Shore

Power cuts are nothing new, they are quite a regular occurrence in my neck of suburbia so when the lights started flicking 8 days ago in bad weather I didn't bat an eyelid.

The odd thing about this blow is that it didn't come from the west. It came from the east.

Maybe they don't prune the trees as well over that way or maybe some of those poles needed looking at but it seems a few power lines got knocked down. That's okay though, the power company promised to fix it by noon the next day. And the day after that.
And the day after that.
And yet again the day after that.
And... well you get the idea.
There were some homes still without power after 7 days.

Now if this was a working class area we wouldn't hear too much about it. If this was a rural area we wouldn't hear much about it either. But it wasn't. It was isolated parts of Takapuna, East Coast Bays and Silverdale. They are griping big time. Still the power companies could have been a bit more up front with their repair estimates.

It was only seven days without power, no flooding or other damage so I've got to ask:

How would these people cope in a civil defence emergency?