Road hell amid outages

05 November 2014 - 08:47 By SHAUN SMILLIE
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CRIPPLED: The collapse of a coal silo at the 3 600MW Majuba Power Station in Mpumalanga on Saturday resulted in renewed load-shedding.
CRIPPLED: The collapse of a coal silo at the 3 600MW Majuba Power Station in Mpumalanga on Saturday resulted in renewed load-shedding.
Image: MOELETSI MABE

Power might have been restored to suburbs across Johannesburg but the cost of accidents and gridlocked traffic that continued for most of yesterday has yet to be assessed.

Between 6am and 4pm there were 75 accidents on Johannesburg roads.

On a usual day, said Johannesburg metro police spokesman Edna Mamonyane, there are about 20 accidents in the city.

"Luckily there were no fatalities [but] the traffic was madness."

Wet weather and motorists' impatience had added to the problem, she said.

But the traffic jams brought out the best in at least one citizen.

Many motorists used social media to praise a woman who directed traffic on William Nicol Drive in Hyde Park.

Mamonyane said the metro police were too stretched to perform adequate point duty yesterday morning.

By noon, City Power had brought power back to 95% of the suburbs. Many areas had suffered two lengthy power cuts in the space of 12 hours.

The cause of the outage, according to City Power spokesman Louis Pieterse, was a fault at a substation in City Deep.

Pieterse said this fault had caused transformers to trip. Technicians were analysing data to find out what had caused the problem.

Pieterse said this was the worst incident this year.

"It is Murphy's Law that it happened when Eskom is having these problems," he said.

While it is not clear what caused the outage across Johannesburg, one electricity transmission expert suspects years of poor maintenance.

Professor Jan Reynders, of the school of electrical and information engineering at Wits University, said the troubled substation could have been bypassed if there had been extra capacity.

"In an ideal world, there would be an alternative supply to feed those suburbs, but we don't have a Rolls-Royce system," he said.

From the early 1990s to the mid-2000s Johanesburg's electrical supply had been upgraded and maintained.

"Now they are trying to play catch-up," Reynders said.

Eskom said technicians were working around the clock at the Majuba power station to restore additional output.

Eskom hoped there would be no further load-shedding for the rest of the week.

 

COME OVER TO THE DARK SIDE byAndile Ndlovu

The Times is coming to readers' rescue by listing a few tips for dealing with the power cuts:

1. GET YOUR HEART RATE UP

Now is the perfect time to use your dormant gym membership, and the gym showers.

2. RAW FOODISM

They say we should be eating more unprocessed foods and this is your chance. Otherwise, just raid the fridge immediately - the food is going to go off soon anyway.

3. GO FOR A PICNIC

Grab a blanket and food from #2 and head off to the park (or your garden) when the power to your TV, XBox and cellphone is cut off .

4. READ

And you might want to go old school and trust a paperback rather than an e-book. All by candle or lamplight, of course.

5. SLEEP

No more alarm clock and no more loud music from next door. Happy snoring!

6. GET TO KNOW EACH OTHER

In a world dominated by hashtags and retweets this is a rare opportunity to sit down with a loved one and truly talk. You might even get lucky (see #7).

7. GAMES

Haul out that old box of Monopoly or Trivial Pursuit, or if you' re in a loving relationship, cuddle.

8. MOAN

You're an overburdened, tax-paying, middle-class citizen, damn it.

9. STOCKTAKING

Candles, firelighters, batteries, food. Do not turn to Eskom or City Power for decisive leadership or information. It's Survivor: SA

10. REPEAT NUMBERS 1-9 UNTIL THE ELECTRICITY IS BACK. YOU CAN THANK US LATER.

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