City of cold as extended outages cause outrage

Power outages resulting from the effect of loadshedding on stressed and old infrastructure are causing mayhem in Johannesburg, and are unlikely to improve soon.

Frail care and elderly patients at hospitals, senior residents at retirement villages, as well as those reliant on oxygen machines, are just a few severely affected by these ongoing power outages.

Though people have adapted to loadshedding, the huge pressure it has had on a strained and tired infrastructure is causing hundreds of localised trips and pockets of exasperating outages that disrupt life for much longer periods of time.

This past week, residents across Johannesburg were pulling out their hair with periods of up to a week without electricity. Johannesburg power utility City Power has blamed Eskom and high stages of loadshedding for the large number of outages across the city.

The city’s grid has been groaning under the weight of daily scheduled power cuts by Eskom, say councillors. It’s evident by the number of calls they are fielding that it’s buckling under the twin stressors of age and power cuts.

“I’m inundated with calls every day, and I receive at least 300 WhatsApp messages daily. It’s utterly overwhelming,” said Ward 81 Democratic Alliance (DA) Councillor Joanne Horwitz. Areas under her watch include hospitals and retirement villages, most of which are subjected to regular outages, causing chaos, confusion, and misery.

These power-dependent institutions include places like the Edenvale Hospital, the National Institute for Communicable Diseases, Sizwe Tropical Diseases Hospital, Elphin Lodge, Tarentaal Village, Inyoni Creek Retirement Village, Sappers Retirement Village, Thembalami Care Centre, and the SANCA Wedge Gardens Treatment Centre.

“These places are all affected by unscheduled outages caused by ongoing loadshedding. There are people on oxygen and other machines that really suffer. Elphin Lodge has had no power since Monday this week – it’s on the edge,” she said.

“Kitchens are struggling to cope and have to feed, between them, hundreds of elderly and vulnerable people. Everybody is crying, not moaning. People are in pain, businesses are going in. It’s all encompassing. I lie awake at night worrying about people on oxygen and those with Alzheimer’s disease who don’t know what’s going on. It’s agony,” Horwitz said. “All I can do is commiserate and tell people that it’s likely to take at least 24 hours, but probably longer than that, and to make a plan in case it’s days before power can be restored.”

Said DA Councillor Daniel Schay, “The sudden drop in temperature coupled with rain hasn’t helped.

City Power technicians are running around like headless chickens responding to call after call from frustrated residents literally in the dark waiting to be switched back on.

“There’s a constant backlog of repair work and a limited budget constrains things further. I have received a fortune of calls,” said Schay.

“Half of Sydenham, Linksfield, and Orange Grove went down. The system isn’t designed to be switched on and off, and it hasn’t been maintained properly. So it cools down when offline and then the sudden spike in load on cold equipment causes it to fail.

“There’s definitely an increase in outages, and City Power is totally overwhelmed, with no night shifts only day shifts. This means it takes longer for it to restore power because it has to fix 20 more things before it gets to you,” he said.

DA Councillor Eleanor Huggett of Ward 73, which covers suburbs such as Norwood, Oaklands, parts of Orchards, Killarney, Houghton, and Orange Grove told the SA Jewish Report that the problem was widespread.

“Our infrastructure was built, as it should be, to stay on permanently and not be turned on and off,” she said.

“This causes power surges, and even with new and well-maintained equipment, would cause problems, never mind ancient, falling apart, infrastructure. The whole system in Johannesburg is virtually being held together with string, and officials and electricians are having to make do with makeshift repairs due to the depots not having stock.”

She said this was a factor “beyond the depots’ control” due to lack of budget.

Eskom has let us know that stage 6 power cuts are here for a while, which means most of the country will be without electricity for up to six hours a day, prompting fears of a grid collapse.

Energy consultant Chris Yelland and University of Johannesburg solar energy expert Professor Hartmut Winkler told the Daily Friend that we’re likely to be in the same mess for the next five to 10 years, due to Eskom’s declining generation capacity.

In spite of ministers’ assurances that things will get better in about 18 months’ time, citizens remain unconvinced after the state of emergency seemed to do precious little to deal with the crisis. There are three government ministers involved in electricity and a National Energy Crisis Committee, yet people remain despondent because the situation is worsening not improving.

“The biggest impact is seeing the effect it has on my children. They are scared of the dark. We don’t have an inverter, so we use portable lights and it’s unsettling for them,” said Grace Chait of Morningside.

“A couple of weeks ago, we were down for four days because 34 sub stations in the area blew. This week, it was because of a transformer issue, I think. The Eskom guys on the ground are amazing, sometimes working through the night. The community has been awesome, those with generators offering to store frozen foods and giving the technicians refreshments. Ward councillor Lynda Shackleford is hands on doing her absolute best.”

Chait does an online course at night, and had to make a plan to find Wi-Fi and recharge her laptop.

“I had to schlep my kids with me who were up till late on a school night while I did my course on Zoom at a friend’s house. It is what it is.”