Staff Reporter.
Residents across the City of Johannesburg have been asked to be patient while they wait for power to be restored due to persistent rain is causing huge delays.
City Power spokesperson Isaac Mangena says they have recorded more than 2 300 calls reporting outages through Friday night.
“We are experiencing high call volumes due to the wet weather conditions in the City of Johannesburg, which is compounded by the loadshedding that has been going on but also loadshedding and vandalism. We would like to caution our customers to expect some delays in terms of repairs and restoration due to the heavy storms and flooded roads amongst others.”
Mangena adds that the highest number of calls are logged from the Roodepoort area.
“In Christian De Wet/Wigeheuwel (Panorama 1, Cornelius 1 and Jim Fouche Road), teams worked throughout the night but were unable to complete testing and cable fault repairs.
“One of the trenches has filled with water and technicians have halted work for now. The weather conditions will be monitored before work continues.
Ridge Road and Fleurhoff remains without power supply and teams will be dispatched to continue with investigations, repairs and restoration if everything continues as planned.
“Reefhaven Substation and Penny Substation: Six mini substations are currently off due to multiple cable faults. Areas that are affected include Lindhaven, Groblerpark, Reefhaven, Roodepoort West, Princess AH, Manufacta and surrounding areas.
“Pierre and Deysel: Power supply is still out as a result of a burnt jumper. Technicians are still attending to repairs and restoration.”
The City has apologised to residents whose power has been off for longer than expected.
Meanwhile power utility disconnected several areas during the blitz which include the Church of Scientology on Hunters Road, which is in arrears of R877 000, Bryanston Sports Club which owes R2,3 million and a residential unit in Cork Avenue which has an overdue bill of R2 million.
“The team also disconnected several residential units in Windsor such as Villa Franco which owes R6.6 million and Leisure Place which owes R1.3 million. Residential units in Windsor owe a total of R12.4 million.”
Mangena said from October the utility managed to collect about R3.8 billion.