New Forms of Power Outages

New Forms of Power Outages / Fernando Damaso
Fernando Damaso, Translator: Unstated

For several weeks now, The Electric Company has been replacing old
wooden electricity poles, the majority of which date to the time of the
Republic, and which have been in use for more than fifty years. Since
they were not regularly replaced over the years, it is now being done on
a massive scale, with the resulting inconveniences and impact on the
population.

I don't know how it is done elsewhere, but in Havana, specifically Nuevo
Vedado, the method being employed leaves much to be desired. Days and
sometimes weeks before, a hole is dug several centimeters around the
pole, leaving it exposed next to the extracted earth. This poses a
potential danger for passersby, especially at night, when street
lighting is scarce. Also, during rainy days like these, the hole often
fills with water and the extracted soil around it washes away, making
the sidewalk, which generally has deteriorated due to lack of
maintenance, unpassable.

To change a pole, a crew of four to six men take ten hours, from eight
in the morning until six in the evening, a period of time in which the
electricity is shut off in the affected area. If two to three brigades
work in the area simultaneously, they can change two to three posts a
day. This happens at least once a week. We therefore have a planned
power outage of ten hours duration weekly. Due to the large number of
poles to be replaced and the "high productivity," the outages are
guaranteed to go on for the rest of this year and even into into the next.

I am not opposed to the poles being replaced, although I would have
preferred an underground system — one less susceptible to being battered
by hurricanes — but we cannot "squeeze blood from a stone," especially
in moments of crisis. What bothers me is that, while each post is being
replaced, only two men are really working. The rest are looking on,
waiting their turns while sitting on the curb, accompanied by a bottle
of rum. It is possible that this constitutes a new form of "socialist
labor" in connection with "the updating" of "the model," but by all
lights it seems quite unproductive. This is not an anomaly. I have seen
it on numerous occasions, which leads me to believe it is established
practice.

In summary, the method used to replace electrical poles guarantees there
will be outages, but without having to declare them as such by
disguising them as "maintenance projects." We enjoy other outages of the
same duration, these disguised as "tree pruning projects." Without a
doubt the Electric Company deserves recognition for its originality in
creating new forms of outages.

October 7 2012

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