JEDDAH/MAKKAH: People continued to suffer power outages in large areas of Jeddah after the fatal rains on Wednesday flooded the city.
Sarah could not put her three little children to sleep due to a power cut in her apartment that started at 2 a.m. on Wednesday. Her family had to spend the entire day without electricity. They got the power back at 12:20 a.m. on Thursday only after her husband made a scene with an electrician who works for the Saudi Electricity Company (SEC).
“My husband went down to the SEC station. We’ve been calling them all day, but no one’s doing anything to solve the problem,” said Sarah.
She said that her husband was going to have a fight with the electrician who did not want to fix the power problem.
“When he found out which district we’re living in, he started making excuses about how his work doesn’t cover that area. Not until my husband threatened to get into a fight did he agree to fix our electricity,” said Sarah.
SEC announced that there had been power cuts in some districts in Makkah, Madinah and Jeddah as a result of the heavy rains, thunderstorms and floods.
Some electricity networks, stations and transmitters have been damaged.
“Technical teams started fixing the damages that rainfall and floods caused,” said Abdulaziz Al-Sheikh, head of the SEC in the western region.
“The company faced some difficulties in reaching some of the electricity stations because they were besieged with water.”
That is what caused the continued disruption of electricity service in different areas of Jeddah. Al-Sheikh apologized on behalf of the SEC even though the factors that caused the power cut were natural causes, he said.
Anwar Al-Ghamdi, who lives in Al-Jameah district, said that when he called up the SEC to report his power cut, he was told that the situation might continue for two or three days.
“The whole neighborhood had no electricity. Not even streetlights. We called them but the line was constantly busy. The lights went back on after midnight,” said Al-Ghamdi.
