Two weeks in darkness: residents of Guinardó suffer constant power outages

BarcelonaJanuary 5th, Three Kings' Day, brought a bitter gift for the residents of five buildings on Ronda del Guinardó in Barcelona. That night, as families prepared for the next day, the power went out. At the time, the residents of these nearly 200 apartments in the Baix Guinardó neighborhood couldn't have imagined that this incident was the prelude to two weeks of constant blackouts. Even today, they all live with almost daily power cuts. In between, more than fifteen days of intermittent blackouts have tested the nerves of the neighborhood. "I wake up at midnight and need to check if we still have power or if it's gone out," explains Andrea Cerci, who emphasizes the anxiety of never knowing if they'll have electricity or not. "You never know what to do. The worst time is at night, but it's happening at all hours," she explains, adding that, moreover, they never know how long the outages will last. "There have been one or two hours, but there have been days when we've been without power for more than twelve hours straight," she recounts.

In conversation with ARA, several residents of the different affected buildings lament how this uncertainty affects their daily lives. Sometimes the outages affect all the residents suddenly, and other times only a few. "It's a lottery," they say. During these weeks, almost everyone has been left without hot water mid-shower—as in the case of Mari Carmen Manjón—or has been trapped in the elevator, like Jordi Sànchez. Everyone has had to juggle their meals. Firstly, because nobody wants to risk filling the refrigerator only to have a prolonged outage spoil the food. But also because they've lost power just when they wanted to cook.

In the midst of a cold and rainy spell, many residents have had to spend entire afternoons without heating or have seen how the constant power outages have damaged some of their appliances. "I have everything unplugged," says Andrea Cerci. Others who usually work remotely from home—like Cristina Calderón, who teaches online at a high school—have had to find other places to do their work for days now. These days, many have bought lanterns, flashlights, and even gas stoves to minimize headaches.

New apartments without elevators

One of the main concerns has to do with the elevators. These five apartment blocks on Ronda del Guinardó are up to nine stories high, and elderly people live on some of the top floors. This is the case for Maria Magdalena Nin de Cardona, who lives on the ninth floor and has heart problems after having survived a heart attack. "If something happens to me because I have to climb nine flights of stairs, who pays the price?" she asks. In her case, she also worries that the power outages might prevent her from using the telecare pendant she wears at home. Helena Lamarca lives in the apartment across the hall. Her 10-year-old daughter has had to stay overnight at her grandmother's house for some of these days. The reason? She sprained her ankle and couldn't climb nine flights of stairs with crutches without an elevator. The residents explain that the technicians hired by Endesa came almost every day between January 5th and 15th, when they considered they had fixed the problem. Two days later, they suffered power outages again. They believe the problem lies with the fragility of the transformer located in the basement of number 29, which, they claim, has required the fire department's intervention at some point during this period due to a faulty cable. "It still smells burnt," they say, and they believe this type of installation shouldn't be inside residential buildings, despite being very common in Barcelona. During this time, they have filed two complaints with the Horta-Guinardó district, which has forwarded them to Endesa for resolution.

Sources at Endesa admit that, since the eve of Three Kings' Day, the 181 homes in these five buildings on Ronda del Guinardó have experienced a series of incidents. They say that after two low-voltage outages that occurred very close together, the wiring was replaced with "more robust" wiring, hoping this would resolve the issues. However, as the residents explain, they soon found themselves experiencing power cuts again because some fuses were blowing. The same sources explain that this type of incident is "synonymous with excessive consumption," but admit that they don't yet know the reason. "We are investigating it; we need to find the cause of this increased consumption in order to solve it," they point out, and emphasize that for now, the repair crew is simply replacing the blown fuses with new ones. This incident coincides with the ongoing conflict in the Prosperitat neighborhood of Nou Barris. There, a group of residents have been experiencing intermittent power outages since September 22nd, when a transformer located in the basement of a building on Palamós Street caught fire, and so far no solution has been found.