City Power strengthen resources following heavy storms and flooding
"We appeal for patience and cooperation from our customers during this time of challenges."
City Power confirmed through a media statement released on Tuesday, December 13 that they have beefed up resources in different Service Delivery Centres (SDC) to respond to possible outages due to the heavy storms and flooding.
Also read: City Power monitoring areas affected by flooding
“It’s expected that rains will persist in the coming days which puts our resources under pressure. Our response time may also be affected due to flooded roads and trenches especially in Roodepoort, Lenasia, Hursthill, among others,” the statement read.
On Tuesday morning, the power utility opened with about 4 800 outage calls from customers across the City of Johannesburg.
Also read: City Power on high alert as they battle load shedding stages
According to City Power, most of the calls come from Roodepoort and Hursthill areas where there had been many outages over 24 hours.
City Power Spokesperson Isaac Mangena said that the outages are as a result of the impact of the recent heavy storms compounded by higher stages of load-shedding, where their teams are divided between responding to the maintenance calls, or restore power after every two hours load-shedding.
He also said that, the impact of load-shedding on the infrastructure has also been huge, with the wear-and-tear increasing with every bout of rolling blackouts.
“While we anticipate more challenges with the rain pounding across our service areas, our teams including contractors who have been working hard to address most of the backlogs, are on standby in all the SDCs, ready to respond.
“We appeal for patience and cooperation from our customers during this time of challenges.
“With the rain, comes an increase in demand for electricity, so we urge you to ensure you use power sparingly, switch off non-essential appliances to avoid overloading and enable for a smooth restoration, especially after load-shedding and any prolonged outages,” explained Mangena.
City Power will continue to update customers on outages in their areas through councillor’s WhatsApp groups and on Twitter @CitypowerJHB.
