Elderly blind woman without power for over nine days

Load-shedding is a nightmare for everyone but to have a nine-day electricity fault is truly hell.

Elizabeth Jacobs (76) lives in Sophiatown and is an independent and proud woman, who happens to be blind.

She lost her vision as a child so has learned to navigate the world around her using her other senses, which she does extremely well.

When the lights do go out according to the Eskom schedule, she can plan her days around the availability of power.

However, nine days without electricity has turned her carefully choreographed routines and plans into an anxiety-filled turmoil.

Chris Muller, her nephew who lives in Alberton, has been doing all he can to help her but it has not been easy. “Normally, I don’t need to check in on her too often as she is completely able to look after herself, but not when life is like this. I usually buy her food once a week or so but it has been going rotten as her fridge and freezer aren’t on.”

He bemoaned the time he had to either drive from Alberton across the city or take time away from other commitments to assist her.

He described how his aunt had not been able to have a hot bath, make a cup of tea, warm herself with a hot water bottle, or charge her phone during these nine days. “She does have very caring neighbours who help but we can’t expect them to do more than what we think is appropriate support. It has been a struggle and so stressful.”

Not having the use of her eyes means she relies heavily on the use of a radio or TV for entertainment and to have some noise in the background so she does not feel alone. “We have just had to buy her a battery-operated radio so that helps a bit.”

He said a team from City Power did come on day nine to begin working on the fault but “as soon as load-shedding hit they said they could not test the lines so would come back the next day”.

City Power’s Isaac Mangena said when asked about the fault, “City Power is aware of the unfortunate power outage that had affected our clients in 68 Good Street in Sophiatown.
“The outage was caused by a faulty supply cable. It’s important to note that some of our operators previously had difficulties in getting access to the premises. We would like to apologise profusely for the inconvenience caused by the prolonged outage.”

He added it was important to highlight the fact that load-shedding, coupled with heavy rainfall and limited resources, had had a significant impact on their normal response and restoration times, but City Power was working around the clock to minimise extended outages.

At the time of going to print, Mangena said he had been informed that the fault had been repaired, but Muller claimed that was not the case.

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