Live cable hanging in resident’s yard; a threat and inconvenience

Residents were unable to complete everyday tasks without electricity due to a broken power cable.

Resident Rianka Steyn explained that on November 7, during the storm, a power cable broke off from the pole that supplies power to their house and fell in their yard. She noted they have been without power ever since and as a result, also do not have hot water. She stated they logged calls, however, City Power has not attended to the damage.

She continued they are taking care of her father who has Alzheimer’s and being without power complicates the day-to-day things and his routine. She also has children writing exams on top of everything else. Another concern is the daycare next to their house. She mentioned the live cable is hanging on the sidewalk, exactly between them and where the children have to be picked up.

Steyn stated, “Fifteen calls logged and every time they say it has been escalated, so we have to wait. It has been three days since November 9. We have no hot water and it is extremely expensive to turn the generator on now and then, just to prevent our food from going bad in the fridge and still no one is here to help.”

She concluded that on November 8 her husband even tried to flag down a City Power truck passing by their house, he then followed the truck to their head offices, where he waited for someone to assist him, however, this still proved to be unsuccessful.

However on November 10 at 18:00 they had power once again after struggling for four days. She added this was after her husband went to the City Power offices in Florida, refusing to leave before someone came to attend to the issue.

City power spokesperson, Isaac Mangena, commented, “I checked with dispatch on November 10 and a resource has been allocated to this job. I called the resource and he said he would attend. I do apologise for this delay but there has been a backlog of low-voltage jobs, and we are trying to resolve this as best as we can.”