Ohakune without tap water for at least another day

• Ohakune water supply expected to return to normal on Tuesday evening, a day later than hoped
• Schools and eateries closed on Monday, and one motel reported losing a substantial booking
• District councillor labels outage an embarrassment
• Mayor says they'll be an investigation.

Ohakune will be without tap water until Tuesday evening, after the district council confirmed the outage affecting the central North Island town would last longer than first feared.

It was originally expected the supply would resume as normal on Monday evening, but a fix had proven more complicated than expected.

This meant eateries and schools would spend another day with their doors closed.

One motel manager told RNZ, the outage was hitting businesses in the pocket.

"[The] council had earlier been confident that water would be restored by 5pm today," Ruapehu District Council chief executive Clive Manley said in a statement on Monday afternoon.

"However, further technical analysis found that repressurising the raw water pipeline too quickly could damage it and cause even longer delays."

He said resuming full flow through the pipeline into town too quickly could risk fracturing it, so a slower, more controlled approach was needed.

"[The] council's water services contractor, Veolia, has confirmed that the airlock affecting the raw water pipeline has been resolved.

"Additional water tankers have also been brought in to help speed up the process as much as safely possible."

Eatery doors stay shut, motel out of pocket

On the streets on Monday portaloos replaced paying patrons, and a water tank parked outside the council office for people to get their supplies. It's estimated more than 5500 water containers were brought to the town for its 1400 residents.

At The Peaks Motor Inn, manager Remi Butler was hauling water around the rooms on Monday morning.

"We've been bucketing water from the cold spa for flushing the toilets, but we got bottled water from the council for washing the dishes," she said.

"We need to do that. We can't use the spa water for cleaning the dishes."

She's hoping the water supply would return as expected, especially as the outage had cost the business.

"The holiday makers from the weekend have left, which is normal, but we actually had a big group that was supposed to come tonight - a full house, for two nights, but they cancelled.

"I don't think insurance will cover anything like that. We'll just have to wear it. It's a big loss, but what can you do?"

At the water tank Angelina Reyes was filling up three five-litre containers for use in the kitchen at her work, the Alpine Motel.

There, she first heard there was a problem with the water on Friday, when warnings to conserve were issued.

"I thought maybe it was a normal glitch but, no, it's for real.

"Yesterday, I had guests in my Airbnb and they said, 'We don't have water.' I had a look on the council Facebook page and they said there's an emergency alert."

Despite that, the town's New World supermarket had remained open, and owner Samuel Fletcher said it was mostly business as usual.

"We follow food safety procedures for something like this. We've got that as part of our food control plan.

"We'll just cut out any non-essential tasks until we get back into normal operations with running water."

Fletcher said those tasks were to do with deep cleaning.

Ruapehu College's 250 students spent the day away from class, and principal Kris Vine said he was keeping an hour-by-hour watch on the situation.

"Ideally, we would be open for business and having our students here.

"Health and safety has to come first, so despite the disruption it's a learning curve for our kids about the importance of water and emergency. I guess there's some different learnings our kids can take from an experience like this."

He said students always had work to do online, so could concentrate on that. He was at school catching up on administration tasks.

Investigation confirmed

Ruapehu mayor Weston Kirton told Morning Report the outage could extend into Tuesday, but after a meeting with officials this morning the news was better.

However, by 3pm, Manley's statement confirmed it was a false dawn.

"The line itself is about 70 years old. It's up in terrain by the mountain - about 5 kilometres of line that's had it's issues at times, but this is fairly new to us that it's broken.

"We'll be having an investigation into what happened."

Many locals RNZ spoke to were understanding, but district councillor John Chapman was less so, telling Checkpoint he was embarrassed and appalled this had happened, especially during ski season.

Kirton acknowledged there would be unhappiness.

"Some people are quite angry at the fact it's happened at this time. It always happens on a weekend, of course.

"The people who I've being seeing over the past 24 hours have been very co-operative...

"We really apologise to them for the inconvenience."

For now, the town's 1400 residents, such as Evie Story and her 18-month-old daughter Thea, are making do as best they can.

"We've got a little baby bath at home, so she just goes in the baby bath. The drinking water they've given us is really good, so she just has that for her water.

"It's not really affecting us that much."

Clive Young, who was also filling water containers from the tank near the council, said he was lucky he had a sceptic tank at home so could use the toilet, but he was looking forward to a shower.