Sindiswa Zulu was off duty that Monday when a substation caught fire in Eikenhof, plunging most of the west and south of the city into darkness, and cutting water supply to Johannesburg, West Rand and Rustenburg.

The 30-year-old Secondary Plant Protection Assistant is one of the women and men engineers and technicians from City Power and contracting companies, who worked around the clock to ensure power is restored to the residents.

 Zulu explains the emotions she was going through on that morning. “I have never come across such a big incident in my career. To me, it was about the experience, the pressure we had yesterday (second day), the tension, and everything. It was good for me," she said.​

It took only 32 hours for Zulu and a dedicated team of individuals that worked throughout the night and day to turn around the situation and restore electricity and water to the affected areas. The damage caused by the fire was so severe that experts predicted it would take at least 72 hours to fix.​

The Executive Mayor of the City of Johannesburg, Cllr Mayor Herman Mashaba, and City Power CEO Lerato Setshedi were grateful for the work done by the team.​

“I'm truly grateful to the team from City Power and Joburg Water for the many hours since the incident happened on Monday. One cannot really thank you enough," Mayor Mashaba said.

Asked how she feels about working in such a pressured environment previously reserved only for men, Zulu says this goes to show that there is nothing that women can't do that men.

She joined City Power in 2014 and started working at Primary Plant. Zulu then moved to Secondary Plant where she says helped expand her knowledge.

“Sometimes when you do what you love, you look forward to go to work the next day, have energy to learn every day and make a change and be counted among the winners," she added.

Zulu has set her sight on being a technician next year.​