By Sholain Govender
Powerless took on greater meaning for a Pretoria family this week as they battled to keep their son healthy during a 26-hour power outage.
The Rudman family, whose 11-year-old son is brain damaged, was forced to buy a generator costing R6 000 on Tuesday to ensure the well-being of their ill son after their neighbourhood ground to a halt during a power outage that lasted more than a day.
The 22 households and businesses of Wingate Park's Woody Street had no power for more than 24 hours. Several parts of Pretoria east also suffered blackouts while businesses and homes in Centurion were brought to a standstill while residents and workers waited for the restoration of power on Monday.
While power was restored in some parts of Centurion late on Monday, Woody Street residents had to endure an early morning blackout. This was followed by a brief hour of restored power and then yet another 26-hour-long outage from 8.45 on Monday morning until about 11am on Tuesday.
Highveld Business Park tenants in Centurion were forced to hire three generators to allow their 90 employees to operate computers yesterday as their power outage, which began at 10am on Monday, continued yesterday afternoon.
Elna Rudman, of Woody Street, Wingate Park, whose son suffered brain damage several years ago, said her family was traumatised by the outages.
"My son, Roald, needs oxygen and we use a saturation monitor for his heart and suction equipment that requires electricity," she said.
"The power failure meant that after we brought him home from the Pretoria East high-care unit on Tuesday morning, out of desperation we had to phone a friend who is a builder to borrow a generator."
The Rudmans had Roald admitted to hospital at the weekend after he was diagnosed with pneumonia. After a short stay in hospital they were allowed to discharge him, as long as they continued to administer his antibiotics intravenously.
"Roald requires 24-hour care. When he is sick, as at present, we must keep him connected to his monitor and machines."
"This house is like a hospital, but you can have all the equipment in the world, but without power it's no use."
The family also had to heat water over an open fire in order to wash Roald and finally decided to buy their own generator as the power outage continued overnight.
Rudman said she was asked to make alternative arrangements in terms of power supply when she called the municipality call centre.
"When I call the centre operators they either laugh at me, say they don't know where Wingate Park is, or say they don't know about any power failures in the area," said fellow Wingate Park resident Lafras Meyer.
Meyer, who runs an architectural business and lives in the same premises, said he had made about 17 calls to complain about the power outage since it started. Other residents in the area had also made many calls about the problem, but were getting no clear response, he said.
Pieter Rudman said one repair truck arrived on Monday to check the problem and didn't return that day. "Today (Tuesday) they (Tshwane Electricity vehicles) have been up and down the street all day but have not managed to sort out the problem completely," he said.
Dee Cokayne from Highveld Business Park said it was shocking that people had to work using generators in the modern South Africa and that after numerous calls to the municipality call centre they had had no joy. She described the outages as "very frustrating".
The Tshwane municipality had not responded to media inquiries about the power outages by late yesterday afternoon.