Calling it the "blackest” summer in years, residents and officials throughout the Iraklion Prefecture are demanding action by the Power Company to find solutions to the constant interruptions of electricity which plague many Iraklion regions.

In addition to causing personal hardships, as well as damage to electrical appliances in homes, businesses reliant on computers for their trade reported losses of income from the prolonged blackouts and short, intermittent stoppages over a period of many days from August through September.

Iraklion MP Mrs. Maria Skrafnaki appealed to Kostis Hatzidakis, minister of growth and development, saying: "Residents and businesses suffered when many Iraklion regions like Gouves, Aghia Pelagia, Kokkini Hani, Karteros, Skalani and many other points on the national road were in darkness from afternoon until late into the night on August 28 and 30. The airport also experienced many difficulties."

According to Yiannis Vrentzos, president of the workers' association in the Power Company's electricity distribution division, the electricity cuts were due to the fact that humidity and sea salt had settled on the insulators of the electric company pylons causing shorts.

"Unfortunately, the maintenance on the network which transports the current has been incomplete," he admitted to a reporter from The Khronicles.

Mrs. Skrafnaki took the issue further, stating: "The pylons were not cleaned or maintained for the duration of the summer period."

Apparently, it was only after the problems surfaced that the Power Company began to address the situation.

"The measures we took were to wash down the insulators using fire department vehicles that arrived from as far away as Alexandroupolis, Kalamata, Patras and Hania," Mr. Vrentzos explained. "We also received technical support in manpower from Hania."

In her question presented to the parliament, Mrs. Skrafnaki asked: "Why the clean-up and maintenance of the electricity network are so lacking especially during the summer months when demand for electricity is so great?"

Getting into the act was Iraklion Prefect Vaggelio Schinaraki, who labelled the situation as "unacceptable" and asked that the Electric Company "proceed rapidly in the planning and building of the electricity producing plant in the Korakia region," which was announced as being in the planning stages back in 2005.

Although elected officials have gone on record as being "outraged" over the blackouts, to date none have actually solicited a response from top management at the Power Company as to what we can expect in the future. This reporter posed the question to Mr. Vrentzos and he laid it directly into the lap of the government, saying, in effect, that if something isn't done by the state it will happen again.

"In the future, the insulators should be replaced with new technology and the technical personnel in the electric company must increase in numbers," he said.  "However, even though the electric company is a public enterprise, there hasn't been much financial support from the government for the multitude of problems it faces."

In other words, according to Mr. Vrentzos there is no money in the power company's budget to upgrade the system, so electrical workers must simply deal with each power outage as they occur, sort of like putting a plaster on a gushing wound . . .