Photo: Table Mountain / Facebook
Photo: Table Mountain / Facebook
No-one, not even our international tourists and beloved landmarks, are safe from the rampant load shedding schedules currently blighting South Africa. We entered unchartered territory on Monday, as Stage 6 power cuts swept across the nation – and left about 500 people stranded and confused at the top of Table Mountain.
Stage 6 load shedding hits Table Mountain
It’s understood that a failure with a back-up generator meant that the cable cars were unable to take off on their next journey. It left hundreds of people on the roof of Cape Town, with no motorised manner of getting down. American tourist Arash Sadighi was one of the first to message Table Mountain staff about the issue.
Haven’t moved an inch in 20 minutes…
— arash sadighi (@asadighi) December 9, 2019
Table Mountain blame “generator failure” for cable car issues
A statement was published on the Cable Way’s Twitter account. They initially blamed “technical difficulties” sparked by Stage 6 load shedding for the disruptions, and after an hour of trouble-shooting, the glitch had been resolved and everyone was able to travel down Table Mountain safely.
“Please note we are experiencing technical difficulties and cable car trips are being delayed. Our epic team is working on it and we’ll be back to normal operations soon. Thank you for your patience!”
#cableway update 2: our technical difficulty has been resolved&our cable car trips have resumed. We'll get everyone back down as quickly as possible. Thank you for your patience. pic.twitter.com/gGDwNtXmhh
— Table Mountain C/Way (@TableMountainCa) December 9, 2019
#Cableway update 3: all visitors who were at the top of Table Mountain have been safely transported to the Lower Cable Station.
— Table Mountain C/Way (@TableMountainCa) December 9, 2019
Thank you to everyone for your patience and understanding.
Stage 6 load shedding shuts down Table Mountain cable cars
Stage 4 power cuts remain in place until 23:00 on Tuesday: Blackouts are likely to occur for the rest of the week. Table Mountain Aerial Cableway Company (TMACC) Director Wahida Parker has since offered free tickets for those who never got the chance to go up in the cable cars, despite purchasing tickets for Monday. It’s probably best to wait until load shedding blows over before going back up there again, though.
“Power surges are believed to have caused the failure of our generator. Visitors who were at the bottom waiting to go up are being offered free tickets for an alternative day. Our technical team is monitoring the impact of the sudden implementation of Stage 6 load shedding to best accommodate our visitors.”
“We are doing everything within our power to make sure any visitor’s experience of Table Mountain is a positive one, even under these extreme conditions.”
Wahida Parker
