A month-long power outage crippled the Midrand SPCA
The SPCA was unable to perform its essential tasks to its full extent after an underground faulty cable led them to sit in the dark for 29 days.
The Midrand SPCA’s electricity issue has been fixed by Eskom but unfortunately, the damages done during the power outage have incurred enormous costs for the organisation.
The SPCA plays an essential role in the community by protecting animals from cruelty, neglect and ill-treatment that is often the result of ignorance of animals and their needs.
On February 18 the electricity at the SPCA went off and little did they know at the time, that this would not be a simple power failure, but a month of struggling to get the lights back on.
The SPCA general manager Pam Pretorius said during this time, the organisation had to run on a generator to keep the internet and phones connected.
“We could not keep the fridge/freezers running, had to take all our surgeries off-site and had to keep our generator running through the night to keep some of our security measures in place to protect our animals, staff and our property. It was a tough month with no end in sight,” Pretorius explained.
“This impacted our emergency calls, caused the loss of our borehole pumping water, we could not print our paperwork and this slowed down our adoptions. We incurred additional costs by using private vets and transportation of animals to off-site facilities and could not keep our vaccinations and other fridge line drugs.”
The power was restored on February 25. However, measures put in place for the restoration were to be short-lived as the SPCA was informed that underground faulty cables were the cause of the problem but Eskom did not have the equipment available to provide a permanent repair at that moment.
The power went out again on March 8, and knowing the vital work they provide for the community and animals, the SPCA decided to engage Ward 92 councillor Charmaine Ngoepe and community leaders.
On March 9, the power was restored with yet another temporary fixture and by March 10, they were in the dark yet again. “With our electricity problems persisting and pressure applied by ourselves, the councillor and several other community leaders, the matter remained open at Eskom,” Pretorius added.
“We spent another six days in the dark and finally with no equipment available and our team losing hope, a team [from Eskom] was sent to manually dig up the cables.”
Eskom sent a team of six workers who spent two full days digging up and replacing the faulty cables and on March 18, an entire month of struggles finally came to an end.
Pretorius explained that despite the issue being fixed the cost of using generators was exorbitant and due to the power surges they had incurred so many costs and spent a lot of money.
“We have since had a donation of solar panels made to our SPCA and while the installations were also done for free, we still had to pay for additional material required to get this up and running.
“We were fortunate that we received some donations during the first outage to help cover some costs but this has been a drop in the bucket compared to what we had to pay out and are still having to pay out as a result of the outages experienced. This situation has crippled us financially and we don’t know how long it would take to recover from this,” added Pretorius.
Councillor Ngoepe thanked the community for working together and encouraged them to continue to work together.
Detail: To help Midrand SPCA raise funds locals can call 011 265 9935 or email admin@midrandspca.co.za
Related Article:
https://www.citizen.co.za/midrand-reporter/319651/spca-team-fuelled-and-ready-to-continue-their-work/
