The electricity department has been inundated with reporting of the Scott/Cooke/Wesley/Bishop/robins/Irwell/Polo and Campbell Streets power failure which happened approx 11h30 Tuesday evening. By early morning reports subsequently grew into complaints and annoyance. The the night shift members responded, but apparently only assessed the fault, but left it to the day staff to sort out whom arrived some time after 8 am on Wednesday morning. They confirmed the fault and tests had to be done to pinpoint the exact location of the fault on the underground cable. The fault turned out to be right in the pathway of the Rochester Road school entrance. The driveway pavement had to be dug up in order to cut out and replace a section of cable. Mr Petersen indicated that the old Rochester Road sub station transformers are in need of an overhall soon as they had to push out higher current into the grid due to the combined demand of the local residences. The higher power creates its own problem onto the old type of oil impregnated cable, the insulation of which tended to fail during wet weather conditions, especially when the local demands are high. The cable itself, and many others will have to be replaced in due course due to old age and failure. A portable power pack had to be brought in to supply the grid, same as two months ago, but this time so that the cable could be repaired. But the Councill's three Diesel power pack units were used elsewhere, and so began the back and forth red tape logistic/finance struggle to hire a power pack which subsequently arrived around 5 pm. Connecting up the 500 kV unit to the grid on corner Scott and Campbell did not take too long but it could not take on all four power circuits and soon cut out due to overload. After some phone calls quick decision was taken to reconnect three of the existing cable lines, which would again be powered by the sub station which would provide power to most of the homes, while the fourth line would be under repair, the diesel power pack then only needed to supply power to the one section only. At that stage a gentleman arrived on the scene, and in a neat attire without an overall on, commenced sorting and reconnecting the power lines and soon after 7.30 pm all the homes were fully back on line and powered up again. The gentleman turned out to be the Senior Superintendent, the Head of the electrical department for domestic power supplies who I had contacted earlier in the day in order to find out what was to happen regarding our power failure. So far then, while the power pack is still humming outside in the street down Scott Road, and quick hands at work in the trench on the cable in Rochester Road , a big thanks to the number of technicians and support staff busy attending to the problem throughout the night and earlier and trust that this will be the end of our local power failure. James
On 25 May 2011 18:02, debra <[email protected]> wrote: > > i see now that lots of us have been working on this problem, thanks to > all, yours in hope > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "The Observatory Neighbourhood watch" group. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > [email protected]. > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/obsnw?hl=en. > > -- *James Cowley* *082 926 1220* *021 448 2824 (t&f)* Observatory Neighborhood Watch: Chairman -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "The Observatory Neighbourhood watch" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/obsnw?hl=en.
