Hello darkness, my old friend
2010-06-04
ESKOM was eventually able to pull off its long planned power cut on Sunday, only to extend its duration to well past sunset.
The national electricity supplier has been promising to switch electricity off for a day in Paarl and Wellington South, to undertake necessary maintenance work before the kick-off of the World Cup. But the switch-off was twice postponed. And so it was third time “lucky”, and residents awoke to darkness on Sunday morning. Fortunately the weather turned out pleasant and many opted for a braai. Other residents made use of pizza take-away restaurants which use wood burning ovens. These institutions were inundated by business for the day. And just as the mercury started to drop towards sunset, there was still no light at the end of the tunnel, even though Eskom had promised that things would be back to normal by 17:00. In central Paarl, lights flickered on at 18:30, only to be extinguished again ten minutes later. Here electricity was restored at round about 19:30. But other areas, such as Denneburg, had to wait until 21:00 before their power was restored. A spokesperson for the municipality said that Eskom had finished the maintenance work later than expected. “When we as the Drakenstein Municipality started to switch on the current again, our system became over-loaded due to the heavy electricity usage that was taking place at that time. “This in turn caused another delay, because we had to then switch on areas one at a time.”
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