Top resorts in the sewage

Power outages continued in Johannesburg and Durban, and at holiday destinations, over the festive season despite a declared halt to load-shedding.

Holiday makers and residents in Durban were without electricity from Christmas Day for up to four days, at the same time a heat wave hit the city. Many people went without a cooked Christmas lunch and chicken farmers north of Durban lost hundreds of thousands of rands as poultry died from the heat.

The dysfunctional city call centre and days-long outages caused by technical problems led to an apology to residents by Durban mayor James Nxumalo.

Holiday destinations Jeffreys Bay and St Francis Bay experienced three days without electricity between Christmas and New Year. The problem started when a electricity pylon caught on fire.

The fire and resultant power problems were caused by a lack of maintenance by the municipality to electricity infrastructure, said National Council of Provinces Democratic Alliance member for the Eastern Cape Elza van Lingen.

A lack of power led to sewage plants overflowing onto the beach in J- Bay as pumps didn’t work. There were also water shortages and petrol shortages.

Food wastage, shop and restaurant closures led to “good few million rand- lost to the local economy” during the busiest parts of the year, said Director of Tourism Brenton Williams.

Williams said beaches affected by sewage spills included Checkers Beach, which is alongside the world-renowned Supertube beach used in international surfing competitions.

Many tourists left Jeffreys Bay early due to the power cuts and sewage.

Residents’’ Association chairman Garth Ford said sewage remained in suburb streets this weekend as there was a shortage of trucks to clear septic tanks during the high season. The sewage problems had been made worse by power failure related spillages.

In Johannesburg, heavier rain than usual caused flooding of small stations and disruptions to power supply, according to City power spokesman Louis Pieterse.

“We had a lot of rain. One of the worst enemies of electricity is water.”

Bryanston was hit with power failure this weekend as residents of the upmarket suburb returned from holiday trips.

On 28 December, Victory Park and Craighall Park had no power. Linksfield and Orange Grove were hit with blackouts the next day. From 30 December, Eldorado Park was out for two days. Wynberg, Alexandra and Northriding had no power for the last day of the year.

Pieterse said none of the outages were due to loadshedding. “At any time at least 30% of all outages are caused by cable theft,” he said. Continual crime and vandalism will add to woes when loadshedding returns, he warned.

A new transformer that cost Buffalo City Metro R40000 to replace in East London's Scenery Park Phase Two was torched on New Year’s Day.

Metro spokesman Thandy Matebese said the mini substation was installed on December 23 after residents had gone three weeks without electricity. “Hardly seven days after we installed the substation it was burned,” Matebese said.

The incident has left more than 600 people without electricity.

Eskom has confirmed the system will be under strain from today as factories and offices reopen.

Power Utility spokesman Andrew Etzinger said a considerable amount of short-term maintainance was done on coal power stations over the quiet festive season.

Pieterse urged customers to turn off appliances and most lights when there is an outage.

When the power returns, often the initial demand caused an “overload trip” meaning the power stayed off.

This led to technicians having to travel to small power sub-stations to deal with the trip and led to longer outages. — Additional reporting by Zwanga Mukhuthu