Enexis is working on Saturday afternoon to repair the damage at a Smoldend Transformator House on the Landsteinerstraat in Tilburg. Residents of thirty apartments had to leave their home. Eighty homes are without electricity until at least half past ten in the evening. “We have left our fate,” says a local resident.
The fire in the transformer house broke out around one o’clock. Around four o’clock it was safe and the residents of the evacuated apartments were allowed back home.
Local resident Niek comes to take a look at the burnt -out electricity house around four o’clock. In the meantime, Enexis is waiting with an excavator and material to repair the first damage.
“We came back home, while the entire neighborhood had already been evacuated,” says Niek, who lives next to the site of the fire. “They had forgotten to close the back.” But in the end he went out of the house with his wife.
“Behind the ribbon we were really left to our destiny. There was a lot of police and enforcement, but they didn’t inform us. We had to read through the media what was going on,” says Niek indignantly. “The only thing we knew is that we had to leave due to an explosion risk.”
According to Niek, the emergency services had to wait half an hour for a key, giving them access to the transformer house. “Nobody knew where the key to the fence was. That took a lot of precious time.”
In the meantime, local residents ask the employees of Enexis how long they are without electricity.
“I have no idea how long it will take,” is the honest response of an Enexis employee. He hopes that the residents will have electricity again on Sunday. “It will be a visit to the fries tent tonight for you.”
Niek does not find the power outage so bad. “That can happen. We will cook on gas tonight.”
