By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
Power utility Eskom has granted City Power some reprieve from load-shedding in large areas in Johannesburg that experienced a significant loss of electricity.
This follows requests from the city this week for a three-day break from rolling blackouts so it could attend to disaster-struck areas.
“Eskom grants City Power some reprieve from load shedding in areas that experienced a significant loss of electricity in large parts of Johannesburg,” Eskom said.
“The reprieve follows the utility’s request for areas that were severely affected by recent floods and storms, which resulted in the loss of electricity, to be excluded from load shedding.
“Through collaboration between the two entities and in accordance with the National Energy Regulator of South Africa regulations, Eskom was able to assist the city during this period.”
Joburg and parts of Gauteng were hits with heavy rains this past week, leaving authorities to deal with several crises on top of national load shedding.
Joburg mayor Mpho Phalatse said on Monday (12 December) that the city was dealing with “near insurmountable” challenges relating to escalating faults and outages after the heavy rains hit the province this past week.
“While progress is being made with limited resources in addressing the thousands of outages that have occurred since last week’s inclement weather and flooding, continuous rainfall means more faults are being logged every hour,” the city said.
“Given the urgent need for City Power to attend to the widespread and escalating faults, the entity has expressed its concern that load shedding is not only causing additional faults and stress on the network, but also preventing the entity from being able to effectively attend to the outages and to stabilise the situation.”
The city stressed that power lines and infrastructure cannot be worked on when there is no power, and cable theft increases exponentially during blackouts.
Rainfall eased during the course of the week, but thunderstorms are still forecast for the long weekend ahead.
Meanwhile, heavy downpours and localised flooding have devastated the City of Johannesburg in the past six days,
In Gauteng, 339 people were affected by floods on Friday and Saturday, while 269 structures, including houses and shacks, were swept away.
It appears that residents are not yet in the clear.
More intense rainy conditions are expected this week and possibly the entire December, the weather service warned on Thursday.
A weather forecaster, Lehlohonolo Thabela, said residents should expect heavy rain, thundershowers and showers on Thursday.
He said the heavy rains would result in damaged informal settlements and infrastructure, and more localised flooding on roads and low-lying brides.