Mr DUNHAM - 1998-11-26
On my way home last night I noticed there were substantial areas in my electorate that were blacked out. That blackout lasted for about an hour. I received some calls from constituents about this and some of them reported that they rang the Power and Water emergency number, and got no response. Can the Minister for PAWA provide some information to this House?
ANSWER
Madam Speaker, I will endeavour to explain some of the problems, but I would also like to say that at this moment we do have a crew working on an investigation into this fault. The fault occurred at about 2200 hours on Wednesday evening in an underground cable between the parkside kiosk and the Leanyer Drive switching station. We are not aware of the reasons for that failure as yet, but I do point out that it is a new cable, and has only recently been laid. They are endeavouring at the moment to locate the point of fault to determine the cause.
The power was restored at about 2312 hours on the same day and the incident did involve some 2687 customers in Malak, Leanyer,and Wanguri. The power supply was restored to all affected customers by switching around the fault. Affected customers were without power for approximately 1 hour and 12 minutes.
I understand the reason that some people had problems in their efforts to contact PAWA at Hudson Creek was because the power cable and the telephone cable are alongside each other and the fault obviously went from one to the other. I will be happy to inform the House at a later stage when we have the results of the technical investigation.
ANSWER
Madam Speaker, I will endeavour to explain some of the problems, but I would also like to say that at this moment we do have a crew working on an investigation into this fault. The fault occurred at about 2200 hours on Wednesday evening in an underground cable between the parkside kiosk and the Leanyer Drive switching station. We are not aware of the reasons for that failure as yet, but I do point out that it is a new cable, and has only recently been laid. They are endeavouring at the moment to locate the point of fault to determine the cause.
The power was restored at about 2312 hours on the same day and the incident did involve some 2687 customers in Malak, Leanyer,and Wanguri. The power supply was restored to all affected customers by switching around the fault. Affected customers were without power for approximately 1 hour and 12 minutes.
I understand the reason that some people had problems in their efforts to contact PAWA at Hudson Creek was because the power cable and the telephone cable are alongside each other and the fault obviously went from one to the other. I will be happy to inform the House at a later stage when we have the results of the technical investigation.
Last updated: 09 Aug 2016