Thursday, May 11, 2006
How people, offices coped with power crisis
CEBU CITY -- It was business as usual at the Cebu City Hall, the Provincial Government, most business establishments and offices despite the blackout caused a mild earthquake in Leyte island about 10 a.m. Wednesday.
By noontime, business establishments in uptown Cebu City, such as restaurants, banks and cell phone shops that did not have generator sets, operated with doors open to allow some air in.
However, the communications support of the Cebu City Police Office (CCPO) was paralyzed.
The police hotline 166 of the Mobile Patrol Group and its base radio were no longer functioning starting about 10 a.m., making it difficult to relay information to the police stations and special units.
At Camp Sotero Cabahug, the home of CCPO, investigators at the Homicide Section accommodated complainants outside the office near a tree, while the Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Bureau (CIIB) held office at the lobby of the administration building.
Police also failed to encode information and affidavits in the computer because of the brownout.
CCPO Director Melvin Gayotin and CIIB Chief Pablo Labra II, however, said that except for the disruptions of communications support and data encoding there was no other problem encountered by the police.
Work lasted only half the day at the Palace of Justice though, with court employees being sent home past lunchtime.
Regional Trial Court Vice Executive Judge Meinrado Paredes, in a verbal memorandum, sent everybody home upon hearing reports that the blackout would last the entire day.
No work could be done anyway.
The courtrooms became to hot and dark with the lights, electric fans and, in some courts, the air-conditioning units useless.
“Justice maybe blind but her judges cannot see in the dark,” one magistrate joked.
The power outage that lasted about eight hours disrupted two City Council sessions, which prompted officials to come up with a contingency plan.
At noon Wednesday, City Administrator Francisco Fernandez alerted the Bureau of Fire Protection (BFP) to prepare sufficient water supply to respond swiftly to any fire incident.
From Manila, Mayor Tomas Osmeña gave orders to tap the BFP in providing water to areas that did not have water supply as a result of the power shortage.
Earlier in the day, Osmeña asked the City Health Department to check the potability of the water used by the fire trucks just in case it will be supplied to areas that have no water.
He also gave instructions to BFP to use the water at the Cebu City Sports Center swimming pool in the event that there is a water supply shortage during a fire. (LCR/JST/KNR/CYR of Sun.Star Cebu)
(May 11, 2006 issue)
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Earthquake triggers Visayas-wide blackout