Chaidari: 14 hours without power in the heatwave

Fourteen continuous hours without power were scheduled for Tuesday 25 August in part of Chaidari. According to the outage schedule, electricity supply is cut from 08:00 to 22:00 due to construction works, on the streets Digeni Akrita, Syntagmatarchi Giannouli, Kassiopis, Kythiron and Plataion. This is the longest outage of the day in the whole of Attica, as the other scheduled works range from two to four hours. Outages of this kind are announced in advance and concern specific streets, not entire municipal communities.

The same day’s schedule also includes an outage in Drosia from 08:00 to 10:00, in Athens on Ippokratous and Tsimiski streets from 08:00 to 10:30, in Athens on Charilaou Trikoupi in the same period, in Athens on Farandaton and Michalakopoulou streets from 08:00 to 11:00, in Kifisia at the junction of Charilaou Trikoupi and Rodou also until 11:00, in Athens on Anatolikis Thrakis street until 12:30, in Kallithea on Sofokleous street from 09:00 to 12:00, in Agia Paraskevi from 10:00 to 14:00, in Peristeri at the junction of Agiou Vasileiou and Menandrou from 11:00 to 14:00, and in Athens on Eptanisou street from 14:00 to 16:00.

The point that makes the difference is the combination. The fourteen-hour outage coincides with days when the temperature in Western Attica reached 39 degrees on Monday 24 August and was expected to reach up to 38 degrees on Tuesday 25 August. Without power, air conditioners and fans do not work, food is not kept refrigerated, and in many apartment blocks the pumps that raise water to rooftop tanks stop. For elderly people and those with chronic health problems, the midday hours are the most demanding of the day. During the same period, the Municipality of Athens is keeping seven air-conditioned spaces open, while no equivalent announcement for Chaidari has been made public.

HEDNO points out that the network’s cables must be considered live throughout the outage, as power can be restored without warning before the scheduled end time. The works are not isolated: on Monday 24 August an outage had been scheduled from 06:30 to 14:30 in Zofria and Ano Liosia, while a similar schedule of water and power outages in ten areas had been announced the previous week. The announcements do not specify what kind of construction works are being carried out in Chaidari, how many supply connections are affected in total, or whether temporary power is planned for vulnerable consumers who depend on medical equipment.