Hail and storm damage cause widespread electricity outages in Joburg

The severe thunderstorm and hail that pummelled parts of Johannesburg have caused damages to electricity infrastructure across the city, plunging some areas into darkness.

City Power is aware of some areas across the City of Joburg that are without power as a result of the thunderstorms.

Damages

Spokesperson Isaac Mangena said some areas have been severely affected.

“The heavy storms have damaged some electricity infrastructure, uprooted poles, flooded transformer chambers, uprooted trees which fell on electricity lines and overhead cables.”

Substation trip

Mangena said the Main Delta Intake substation also tripped, in what is suspected to be an overhead line fault caused by the storms.

“We have dispatched operators to investigate the transmission line to Delta substation, and we can only advice on any repairs and restorarion plans after locating the fault. The Delta substation outage affect several suburbs in central, western, and southern Joburg.”

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Spike in outage calls   

He said there has been a reported spike in electricity outage calls from frustrated customers.

“We are increasing resources to most of the Service Delivery Centers (SDC) in order to respond to those calls. By later this afternoon we were dealing with close to 2000 outage calls.”

However, Mangena said City Power may be delayed in getting to affected areas.

“Our response times to outage calls currently flooding our system will also be delayed as we are forced to navigate through the flooded streets, damaged roads, and trees blown into the roads.”

Assistance

“We have engaged our colleagues at Joburg Zoo to assist in removing some of the trees that fell on the electricity infrastructure. Our teams are doing evrything in their power to respond to the outage calls and to ensure there is minimal disruption to power supply,” Mangena said.

City Power has apologised to customers for the inconvenience and will continue to update them on the developments.

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