CEBU, Philippines - The Visayan Electric Company, Inc. (VECO) clarified the report that 200 houses experienced an emergency outage for almost 24 hours in Sitio Awihaw, Barangay Kalunasan, Cebu City last January 2 and 3.
According to Ethel Taneo-Natera of VECO, no such thing happened and that only one house had no power due to a fallen Ipil-Ipil tree.
The affected Veco account was registered under the name of Ma. Aida Barredo.
According to VECO, due to the volume of calls and the bad weather the day the incident happened, VECO’s emergency crew arrived at the place around 11:00 p.m. and because of the unavailability of an access road for a four-wheel vehicle, the crew had a hard time reaching the house of Barredo.
Also, no one was able to point to the group where Barredo’s house was. Because of this, the emergency personnel were forced to postpone the repair of the broken wire and resumed work the following day.
It was on the next day, January 3, that the team was able to remove the tree and fix the power line. The power at the house of Barredo was restored around 2:30 p.m.
VECO said that although there were close to 200 houses in the same area, they are getting power from another power line and so they were not affected by the tree that fell on a line. (FREEMAN)