Black out caught Dubai Off guard
By Karen Remo-Listana
Posted: 13 June 2005
Dubai ’s busy roads are kept sane and manageable only through the city’s traffic lights. So when the power black out hit Dubai on Thursday, the city was caught off guard. The power failure occurred at 9:10 am, just when everybody was on the way to work and braving the 35 Celsius (95 F) heat with about 62 per cent humidity.
“A sudden failure in one of the main transmission sub-station at Jebel Ali Power Station, caused the power failure to the city," an official of Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (Dewa) said.
 Air conditioning units stopped, and main roads and intersections jammed as traffic lights failed. Water supplies were also cut in some areas of the city including the Springs, Meadows and Lakes residential communities. Dubai International Airport, police stations, hospitals and civil defence, however, remained operational during the cut but the Dubai stock market closed after trading for a few minutes.
Vital city operations, such as the airport, police stations, hospitals and civil defence forces have not been affected because they are equipped with emergency generators. Otherwise, all other businesses were temporarily paralysed.
According to reports, Dubai's 1.2 million residents could have lost in excess of Dh268.46 million in potential business due to the power blackout and disruption in telecom services had it continued for the full day.
This could have happened by a mere “substation fault.”
“What happened actually is a fault in the GIS building 400KV substation. And I will assure you that there is no fault at the production generation unit,” said Saeed Mohammad Al Tayer, Managing Director and Chief Executive of Dewa as quoted by Gulf News.
Power nonetheles was resumed at around 2 pm to major parts of the business areas and other parts received power later on that day.
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