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Baghdad Celebrates End of Power Outage
Jubilant residents of south Baghdad celebrated the end of a three-week power outage Thursday by firing guns into the air, now ritual as electricity blinks back on, neighborhood by neighborhood. The lights stayed off throughout much of the Iraqi capital, however — despite the fusillade of automatic weapon and small-arm fire. Engineers in some areas said there was little more they could do without spare parts they said had been promised by American forces — essential to repairing damage from bombs and gun battles in the city of 5 million people. ``Without the parts, Baghdad will have a big gap between what is available and what is needed,'' engineer Manhal Abbas said at east Baghdad's Al-Mashtal repair headquarters. Electricity went off citywide in the first week of April, knocked out — in part — by damage from the war, workers abandoning their posts, and breakdown of essential systemwide coordination. Security failed with the power, leaving Baghdad's people homebound and sleep-deprived as they stayed up nights to guard their families against roaming robbers. Power returned to parts of west Baghdad, and elsewhere, earlier in the week. The restoration has been sporadic. Shopkeepers on one side of an east Baghdad block stared resentfully Thursday at their neighbors on the other. One side preserved their wares with blocks of ice, the other, with smoothly running refrigerators. Baghdad citywide needs 1,000 to 1,200 megawatts, engineers said. Thursday, it was getting 150 to 300 megawatts. According to Iraqi engineers, U.S. bombs damaged cables, fuel lines and at least one power station's system. Gun battles between U.S. forces and Saddam Hussein's defenders took out transformers. Parts for repair, never in large supply in recent years, were looted during the last two weeks' pillaging. Put out a call — a small part of that $700 million in Sammy's cash for the spare parts, no questions asked. The U.S. military has identified power as their No. 1 priority for Baghdad. At a news conference, U.S. Maj. Gen. Carl Strock said natural gas production at one refinery was expected to resume Friday. ``That is critical for the gas turbines, which drive most of the electrical grid in the Baghdad area,'' Strock said. Posted by: Steve White 2003-04-25 |
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