- Inaugurated the power of the city Tuesday morning to around 4,800 outage reports in Johannesburg.
- Most of the blackouts occurred in Roodepoort and Hursthill and persisted for more than 24 hours.
- The entity said it reinforced resources to respond to blackouts due to heavy storms and flooding.
Johannesburg’s utility, City Power, opened on Tuesday morning to around 4,800 outage calls from customers across the city.
Most of the calls come from Roodepoort and Hursthill, where the outages have persisted for more than 24 hours.
City Power spokesman Isaac Mangena said the entity reinforced resources at different service delivery centers to respond to possible outages due to severe storms and floods.
He said City Power expected the rain to persist for the next few days, “putting our resources under pressure.”
“Our response time can also be affected by flooded roads and trenches, especially in Roodepoort, Lenasia and Hursthill, among others.”
He added that the outages were caused by recent heavy storms and compounded by higher stages of load shedding. He said City Power’s “crews are torn between responding to maintenance calls or restoring power after every two-hour load outage.” [slot]”.
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He said the impact of the reduced load on the city’s infrastructure was “enormous” and that the wear and tear increased with each round of rolling blackouts.
On Monday, Johannesburg Mayor Mpho Phalatse asked Eskom for a 72-hour postponement of the load disconnection so the city could carry out repairs and maintenance on infrastructure damaged by the storms.
Infrastructure and Environment Services MMC Michael Sun said blackouts were preventing the completion of work and leaving a growing backlog for repairs.
Residents of Lenasia had to flee their homes, which were flooded after incessant rains.
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“While we anticipate more challenges with rain hitting our service areas, our teams, including the contractors who work hard to address most delays, are on standby at all service delivery centers, ready to respond,” he said. .
City Power called for customers’ patience and cooperation during this time.
“With rain comes increased demand for electricity, so we urge you to ensure you use energy sparingly, turn off non-essential appliances to avoid overloading, and allow for smooth restores, especially after power outages.” charging and prolonged blackouts,” he said.
