Week-long power outage leaves heart patient in distress in Ruyterwacht
More than a week in the dark, Jerome Engelbrecht says his family was left without power in Ruyterwacht, where electricity is supplied by Eskom.
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For more than a week, the Engelbrecht family lived in the dark.
No lights. No hot meals. No way to power a nebuliser needed by a heart patient struggling to breathe.
By the time electricity was finally restored on Sunday at about 6.15pm, the damage had already been done.
Jerome Engelbrecht, a Ruyterwacht resident, said his household had been without power since the Easter weekend.
“This time around it was a terrible experience because I’m a heart patient and often have breathing problems, and I could not use my nebuliser,” he said.
The outage was linked to a damaged pole, according to the family, leaving the household without electricity despite repeated attempts to get assistance from Eskom.
“I have called the call centre over and over. Every time it is the same story, a new person, and no actual help. There is no follow up, no urgency, nothing,” Engelbrecht said.
With no electricity, everyday life quickly unravelled.
“I lost almost a whole lamb, seafood from Easter and a lot of small things,” he said.
Engelbrecht, who does small welding jobs to help support the household, said he was unable to work during the outage.
“I could do nothing because of having no electricity,” he said.
He said the financial strain was compounded by the cost of trying to get help.
“I had to spend more than R100 a day on airtime trying to get hold of Eskom,” he said.
Inside the home, the pressure mounted.
“I stressed a lot, which caused chest pains. It really caused mental distress for my whole family,” he said.
His son’s studies were also affected.
“My son is studying and had difficulties doing his assignments online and preparing for his LLB exams,” Engelbrecht said.
At one point, the family relied on an extension cord from a neighbour to charge phones and intermittently run a fridge.
“What I don’t understand is that it took them about 45 minutes to resolve my problem after all that time,” he said.
He added that this was not the first time the same infrastructure had caused problems.
“Two years ago the same thing happened and we were without electricity for two weeks, and I was not compensated,” he said.
Ward councillor Christopher Jordaan said he escalated the matter and stressed that electricity supply in the area falls under Eskom, not the City of Cape Town.
“The majority of electricity supply in the north of Cape Town, including Ruyterwacht, is controlled and supplied by Eskom,” Jordaan said.
He said ageing infrastructure, vandalism, cable theft and overgrown trees on private properties continue to complicate repairs.
“Vandalism, cable theft and overgrown trees, especially in Ruyterwacht, are causing major problems. Many of these trees are on private property, and it’s a struggle to get residents to trim or prune them,” he said.
Jordaan added that safety concerns and resource constraints also play a role.
“In some hotspot areas, Eskom teams cannot proceed without SAPS or law enforcement assistance, which causes delays,” he said.
“Ruyterwacht is just one of several areas I am responsible for, and we are dependent on Eskom teams to attend to faults. This case is not an exception when it comes to delays.”
He said all complaints brought to his attention are escalated.
Eskom had not responded to multiple media enquiries at the time of publication.