Lights out on Abercorn

Craighall Park residents have been left without electricity after a cable hanging low across Abercorn Avenue was hit by a truck, causing an electricity substation to explode on 27 September.

According to residents, an unknown truck which was traveling at a high speed hit the cables causing a loud bang.

A domestic worker, who preferred to remain anonymous, was at her place of employment in the kitchen overlooking the street at the time, said it was frightening to hear the noise and to see all the wires catch alight.

“The fire went through the wires before it reached the substation, causing a huge bang,” she said.

“I was frightened and thought the entire street would be on fire.”

Another resident, Eleanor Cadell expressed shock at the behavior of the truck driver calling it ‘ghastly’. “Sometimes trucks are very responsible and when they see that they are going to damage trees they reverse and they use another street,” said Cadell.

“Today, this driver carried on straight through causing absolute chaos.”

Elspeth Kempe, Abercorn Avenue’s officially elected street representative, confirmed that it had been over a year of logging calls to City Power to see to the cables which had the potential to cause danger.

“Every time we went back onto the [City Power online call logging systems] it said problem resolved,” explained Kempe.

“We would call and they would repeat the same to us.”

She went on to say that, as residents, they were told by City Power that if there was still power, it meant they did not have a problem.

Vojkan Belovic, manager of AJ’s In The Park, a restaurant within the Craighall Country Club where the substation is located, alleged that when firefighters arrived to extinguish the blazing fire they used water to extinguish the escalating flames.

Defending the alleged action of the firefighters extinguishing substation flames with water, Johannesburg Emergency Management Services (EMS) spokesman Robert Mulaudzi said water is a medium extinguishing agent. He said depending on the size and speed of the fire sand and water mixed with foam were also used.

“It is the job of the firefighter responding to the emergency to decide what to use to extinguish the fire based on what is on fire and how big the fire is,” explained Mulaudzi. “The community’s complaint is a technical one, but the decision lies with the firefighter.””Ward 74 councillor, Martin Williams has been on-site and has spoken to City Power who promised to have a street generator in place to keep residents going,” said Cadell. “But we don’t know when exactly this will happen.”

City Power are yet to provide comment. This is an ongoing story and will be updated as information becomes available.

Also read: Burst pipe floods roads

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