POWER OUTAGES ON THE BEACH ARE A CONSTANT; CFE ACCUSES VANDALISM

On Saturday night, Playa residents were getting ready to finish their day, it was already dark and many had taken advantage of the morning or afternoon to go shopping and store the necessary items in the cupboard and refrigerator, some were still finishing their work in front of their computers and others were stretching their feet to relax or have a nice time, maybe play some music, turn up the volume and dance, or simply rest on the eve of Father’s Day, but unexpectedly the power went out…

And with it thousands of pesos were lost in the homes of families and businesses in the municipality of Solidaridad, as the blackout lasted almost 16 hours in Playa del Carmen; uncertainty, annoyance and of course the heat and sultriness were also present.

On social media, users began to complain about the lack of electric power since 10:00 p.m.; specifically on Twitter, some messages addressed to the company in charge of controlling, generating, transmitting and commercializing electric power, received an almost automated response, with no immediate solution. It was until 15:30 pm on Sunday that the service was restored.

Unfortunately, families lost their food due to lack of refrigeration, and several businesses were affected as they were unable to operate. The problem persisted in the northwest of the city, where the new subdivisions and the new commercial zone of Playa del Carmen (PDC) are located.

According to a statement from the CFE, the power failure was registered at 2:50 a.m. this Sunday morning due to an act of vandalism, but as mentioned above, the power outage actually began at 10:00 p.m. on Saturday night.

In addition, the statement claims that one hour after the power outage, the service was restored to 92% for the 11 thousand affected users, but this was not the case, the service resumed at 4:00 pm, and even then the problem persisted, as the power began to fail intermittently after 9:30 pm and the mood of the people became irritating, it seemed as if someone was messing with the welfare and the assets of the population.

The problem is more serious, blackouts continue and users are complaining about the terrible service provided by CFE. This blackout occurred in a large residential and commercial sector of Playa del Carmen, and adds to the constant power outages that occur in large residential areas such as Villas del Sol. On Twitter it is said that every week the power goes out in some part of Playa del Carmen; and as if that wasn’t enough, it happened again this Monday morning, at 2:00 a.m. another blackout was registered, and at 9:00 a.m. the authorities still had not made a statement.

The dissatisfaction has escalated among the users. Weeks ago when the blackouts occurred in several subdivisions, the protests made noise in the streets, the residents blocked access to various areas to protest against the CFE.

During the recent election campaign, some candidates got involved in this problem, and claimed that the CFE blames the construction companies for failing to install material and equipment to prevent the outages.

And while the Commission seems to justify itself by saying that the failures are due to “acts of vandalism” or non-compliance of the construction companies, thousands of citizens of PDC suffer economic losses due to the perishing of their food that requires refrigeration, and discomfort due to the high temperatures of the Mexican Caribbean.

The statement issued yesterday by the CFE was accompanied by two photographs showing the “vandalized” equipment, although the affected population of Solidaridad believes that the failures are due to a lack of budget for the maintenance of the installations of the state-owned company itself. Let’s see what they say after this latest blackout, since while some suffer from the rotting food, others deal with bad mood due to the heat accumulated during the night, and the overall losses amount to millions of dollars.

Translated by Miguel Sánchez