Residents of Emily Hobhouse Street leave powerless homes to demand restoration of electricity supply
Protest comes less than 24 hours after residents in nearby Sterretjie Street set a successful precedent.
Feeling neglected, the powerless made themselves visible.
Residents of Emily Hobhouse Street declared the civil channels of communication were insufficient and caused peaceful mayhem in their streets on February 15.
Having suffered for several days without electricity, those living in the numerous residential developments that had been reduced to brick shells brought their angst and refuse bins into the streets to demonstrate their frustration at being neglected.
Following the protest in nearby Sterretjie Street less than 24 hours earlier, otherwise, patient neighbours joined forces to demand the restoration of their electricity supply. Gathering at roughly 18:00 in the evening, the protesters disrupted traffic before Honeydew police brought a temporary lull to the situation.
By 19:00, the residents were back in the darkening suburb, marching through Emily Hobhouse Street to Nic Dierderichs Road where passing motorists signalled their support.
The protest proved successful as shortly after 20:00 the electricity was restored. Some believe the faults logged for the area were confused with faults logged for outages relating to the Christiaan de Wet Road substation and have called for a more efficient and accurate reporting system.
Ward governance and City Power were asked to elaborate on the increasing duration of power outages in the area and their feedback will be provided when forthcoming.
Plans were in place to continue the protest action until power was restored but even after that had materialised, residents have stated they will not hesitate to resume their mass action when the next inevitable outage occurs.
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