jasher

Hello,

This might be of interest to people planning to travel to Cape Town or othe areas of the Western Cape in the next few months...

As some of you may have heard, the western Cape region (including Cape Town) has been suffering from intermittent power outages over the past few weeks, stemming from a halving of the generating capacity at the main generator plant for the region. My travel industry contacts in Cape Town report outages as long as 4 hours, and several have lost internet access after power surges related to the cuts damaged their computer systems.

Eskom is working on repairing the problem as soon as possible, but it sounds like it may persist until mid-May. Here's an article with more detailed information:

http://www.fin24.co.za/articles/defa...518-25_1891627

Cheers,
Julian

ShayTay

The power was off when we awakened in Cape Town on Feb. 19. The staff at the V&A Hotel did an admirable job of providing us with breakfast (no hot dishes), even finding a way to make coffee. The power was out on the whole Peninsula, which we toured that day. The funicular wasn't running at Cape Point due to no power, but it was too foggy to see anything from the top, anyway. The power was back on in Simon Town when we stopped there for lunch. This happened on a Sunday, which was fortunate. I can't imagine what traffic would be like in Cape Town without working "robots"! Everyone seemed willing to make the best of the situation.

jasher

Hello,

Glad to hear that the city is coping well. The power outages have been particularly bad this week, it appears -- hopefully things will get better soon.

Cheers,
Julian

luangwablondes

Please note:

According to Eskom’s urgent load balancing requirements, the light at the end of the tunnel will be switched off until further notice.

Celia

We were in the Western Cape this past Tuesday and Wednesday. When we woke up Tuesday morning in the rural area around Ladismith the power was off, but it came back on soon enough for us to have breakfast. We were also able to watch the TV coverage of the preparations for Wednesday's elections. But by noontime when we had reached the town of Worcester, the power was off again. Drivers were all behaving in a very civilized manner, treating the robots as 4-way stops, and the lunchtime crowds on the streets were quiet. The streets were full of people -- not only people on lunch break, but shop workers who couldn't do business because their computers and cash registers weren't working. But it was eerie, because of the quiet! When none of the electric things in a town are working, it's so silent it's wierd!

One of the newspaper headlines that we saw Wednesday in Cape Town suggested the outage could be due to sabotage, but we didn't see or hear any more about that.

Do any of you follow the cartoon "Madam and Eve"? One of this week's cartoons about the outage is just a stitch! It's at www.madamandeve.com. I don't know if it's as funny to people who don't follow everyday life in South Africa as it is to me, but I just love that strip.