Johannesburg ward 66 councillor Carlos Da Rocha described the two weeks of power outages in large parts of Observatory and surrounding areas as the “most devastating crisis”.
He said residents were left in darkness while City Power scrambled to repair the cables, as the problem was made worse by cable theft.
It all started when the Observatory substation caught alight on December 2, leaving several suburbs feeding off the substation without power.
Da Rocha said when the main substation, which feeds other mini substations, caught alight, cables were damaged and thieves allegedly stole the cables, plunging the suburbs into darkness for days.
Power supply was interrupted in Bellevue, Bellevue East, Cyrildene, Houghton Estate, Kensington, Linksfield Ridge, Observatory, Observatory Ext, Yeoville and surrounding areas.
At the time, City Power said part of the restoration plan was to lay new cables from the Observatory substation to Bellevue substation.
Da Rocha said it was a 3km cable and City Power missed its deadline to power the Bellevue substation as it kept tripping. He said it completed the repairs on Tuesday and started switching on the substation on Tuesday evening.
Samora Ntsebeza, a resident from Observatory, said the suburb is typically a peaceful area but during the period they saw a spike in criminal incidents. “Criminality has been [allegedly] rampant in general across the suburbs where darkness has engulfed us for the last two weeks,” he said.
He said residents learnt of a bakkie without number plates doing the rounds in the suburb. He said that at one point guards at the suburb’s entrance boom gate were held at gunpoint and allegedly assaulted.
“We had our share of that activity. They [suspects] were carrying guns and allegedly assaulted guards physically and fired several shots in the air, stealing solar panels in one of the homes and even the quad bikes that security uses to move around the neighbourhood,” he said.
Ntsebeza said most people had to charge their electricity gadgets, such as inverters and cellphones in different places.
“Most people are eating out every single night as a result of no longer buying groceries.
“During the first week, people were still dependent on the promise of five to seven days [of electricity restoration] only to find out it went beyond those seven days,” he said.
At first, he said many residents had to throw out rotten food and emptied their fridges.
By Tuesday, evening power was restored in some of the suburbs, but on Wednesday afternoon it had tripped again in some areas.
You can’t have a normal meal, and I think people are just going all over the place trying to charge their phones and laptops.
— Resident Kally Forrest
“The other half hasn’t had a sniff of power since December 2, and that was because there was cable theft at the mini substation that feeds half of the community,” he said.
Another resident, Kally Forrest, said life was no longer normal and she had to wander around on different days to different friends so that she could try to work. She could only buy food that lasted her for a few days, since all her food went rotten and was thrown away.
“If you are working at home you can’t work in this area. There is no washing machine, people’s swimming pools have gone green and it is just completely non-functional. You can’t put things in a fridge, you can’t do any of your normal activities.
“You can’t have a normal meal, and I think people are just going all over the place trying to charge their phones and laptops,” she said.
She added there have been security issues in the area and the security guard at the boom gate was held up and the suspects allegedly stole the security register in which they recorded their names when they entered the suburb.
“They [City Power] sent about 100 workers to replace the cable, but that didn’t solve the problem in this area. Sometimes the lights come out, not in our area, a little bit down. The lights that came on last night, but have all gone out again.”
She said there was a feeling in the community chat group that people had been abandoned and that the entity did not seem to know how to fix the problem, and they wondered if it could go on for months.
“There is that feeling that we are being abandoned. They have been talking about cable theft for a long time, and you start to wonder whether that is an excuse for them not knowing what the problem is and how to fix it and why it is tripping all the time,” she said.
Da Rocha said residents went through hell in the past two weeks losing food from their fridges. “This was a disaster of note,” he said.
He added some people were still without power because after the substation caught alight, thieves allegedly started to steal cables and switches from the substation.
City Power spokesperson Isaac Mangena confirmed on Wednesday morning that a team worked throughout Tuesday night loading breakers one by one. “We are confident that eight out of the twelve distributors have been restored,” he said.
He said that distributors to Yeoville East, Grafton Road South, Urania Street, Natal Street, Judith and Gerald streets, Hopkins, Houghton West and Fortesque Road were restored.
“We successfully managed to restore Bellevue substation through interconnectors, and we can safely say we’re on around 67% restoration. The following distributors remain off until the load stabilises: Bellevue East, Bellevue North and Grafton North.
“Operators will continue to monitor and balance the load and restore the remainder on Wednesday. We urge customers to reduce the load by switching off non-essential appliances until the load subsides,” he said.
He added that City Power’s network was targeted by cable thieves and vandals.
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