Freaking loadshedding

KytchynWitche

Out stupid national power supplier called a state of emergency this morning because their coal supplies "got wet". Which meant loadshedding for the entire country, to prevent a national outage. Loadshedding is supposed to happen for no more than two hours at a time, according to the power supplier's website. On the same website they have a schedule for loadshedding that contradicts that - listing 3x 2 1/2 hour off periods for our area for today (and every day until April 2). We were without power for 11 hours today (9am to 8pm).

Now, I really don't mind being without electricity, BUT if the schedule says our power will be back on at 10.30am, then I want my power back on at 10.30am. The worst part is that the afternoon loadshedding scheduled for our area for the next 4 weeks is 4pm to 6.30pm. Considering that we almost never get our power back on time when there's loadshedding, that means that there's no power when the vast majority of people are trying to make supper. Not really a problem for us, because we have a gas stove and oven - we just need to plan what we want to eat and prep whatever needs prepping. But gas is not the standard here, not even in the hospitality industry, so it's not like people can even go out or get takeaways for supper. Well, okay. We have a pizza place with a woodburning oven, and the local dive bar has a generator...

I didn't have any plans for today other than getting my art supplies, which I did. So I watched an episode of Gilmore Girls on my laptop while it had power (when we still thought that we would have our power back by 11am) and then read until I thought my eyes would burst from my skull and shrivel up like raisins. I finished ANOTHER book (which makes 3 in the last week) and am halfway through the fourth.

We ended up having Chinese food, which FI and FFIL brought in from the town, but now I feel sick.

I have to get up early in the morning to blog a review and send FI's cousin's FI our RSVP email before the power goes out. I don't have the invite with me and I'm too tired now to go looking for it.

pinkshorts27

ah! That would be infuriating. I've never heard of loadshedding, but that sounds awful. My dad would just say "Well then my dinner calories are going to be wine calories" haha.

KytchynWitche

blueeyes90 said:

ah! That would be infuriating. I've never heard of loadshedding, but that sounds awful. My dad would just say "Well then my dinner calories are going to be wine calories" haha.

I can't believe I didn't think of that!

It sucks, and it happens every year, but usually only in winter (when more people are using heaters, leaving geysers on longer, cooking hot meals etc). It's going to be a really bad winter for us if we're not even in autumn yet and they're loadshedding already.

It also doesn't help that our national power supplier provides electricity to several other southern African countries...

JCbride2015

Fascinating.  This is just not something I can picture happening here in the US (at least, not in the NYC area) without widespread rage and lots of people at the power company getting fired.  Heads rolled when power took so long to come back after Sandy, and that was a major emergency!

KytchynWitche

JCBride2014 said:

Fascinating.  This is just not something I can picture happening here in the US (at least, not in the NYC area) without widespread rage and lots of people at the power company getting fired.  Heads rolled when power took so long to come back after Sandy, and that was a major emergency!

I think the difference is that US citizens actually have a voice. We don't, really. As long as it's convenient for the ruling party and their buddies, it'll happen. And by convenient I mean makes them loads of money by cutting corners on the power station maintenance etc...

Simky906

Ah, loadshedding! I experienced those fun schedules when I was in your country (back in 08). In fact, I got my stupid self stuck in an elevator due to that. I got back to my dorm after class and according to the schedule, the power should have been cut about a half hour earlier. It was still on, so I didn't think about it, and got in the elevator (along with about 5 others, so at least I wasn't alone in my idiocy) to go to my sixth floor room. The power cut between the fifth and sixth floors of course and we spent about 45 minutes in there before they were able to get us out. That was the last time I took the elevator remotely near a load shedding period!

KytchynWitche

Simky906 said:

Ah, loadshedding! I experienced those fun schedules when I was in your country (back in 08). In fact, I got my stupid self stuck in an elevator due to that. I got back to my dorm after class and according to the schedule, the power should have been cut about a half hour earlier. It was still on, so I didn't think about it, and got in the elevator (along with about 5 others, so at least I wasn't alone in my idiocy) to go to my sixth floor room. The power cut between the fifth and sixth floors of course and we spent about 45 minutes in there before they were able to get us out. That was the last time I took the elevator remotely near a load shedding period!

Yeah, loadshedding sucks major donkey balls. Sorry you got stuck in the lift.

Simky906

Yeah, that wasn't my favorite thing about SA to be sure, but the rest of the time I was there was pretty fantastic. No country is perfect of course but South Africa is beautiful and I really want to visit again. I didn't get to see nearly as much of it as I would have liked since it's such a large country.

pumpkinsandturkeys

All I have to say is, yay for Gilmore Girls!