By James Amoh Junior, GNA
Accra, July 8, GNA – Teshie Bush Road will not forget the night the sky stayed clear but the earth still thundered.
Three sharp cracks ripped through the air, bouncing off zinc roofs and waking babies, dogs, and grandmothers all at once. And then — darkness. Thick, sudden, and total.
For three long days, Teshie Telephone Pole, Bush Road, Happy Yourself and the streets around them lived in a different world. Fridges went quiet. Barbers put down their clippers. Cold stores became warm puddles of fish and chicken.
Generators growled like restless lions while residents chased light with torch batteries and phone screens.
And the culprit? Not a storm. Not vandalism. According to sources, it was a chicken.
Yes, a wandering chicken.
Somehow it fluttered, slipped, or misjudged a landing and found itself on top of an ECG transformer.
In that instant it touched two live wires, and the metal crushed. Sparks flew. The transformer shuddered, coughed out three explosions, and gave up.
“It sounded like they were blasting rocks at the quarry,” resident Nii said, still shaking his head days later. “First boom. Then another. Then the whole place went black.”
ECG’s official notice called it “a faulty transformer.” The streets called it what it was – a bird with bad timing.
Engineers had to haul in a new transformer, lift it into place, reconnect the tangled web of wires, and run test after test before the current could safely flow again. That careful work is what stretched the outage to 72 hours.
In the meantime, the broken transformer became Teshie’s oddest tourist attraction. Children pointed. Aunties debated. Men stood with folded arms, watching every wrench turn as if willpower alone could speed up the repairs.
Every time an ECG truck rolled in, hope flickered; then settled back down.
The cost of the blackout was written in melted meat, warm drinks, and cancelled orders.
Ms. Mercy had stocked up for business. “Three days with no light. Everything gone bad. A huge loss,” she said.
Others bought ice by the block, or knocked on neighbours’ doors just to charge a phone.
At night, Bush Road traded streetlights for rechargeable bulbs and the steady purr of generators. The darkness was heavy, but the community was not. People shared, laughed, and waited.
Then Wednesday evening came. One by one, bulbs blinked awake. Cheers rose. Freezers hummed again. Life, in full color, returned.
Engineers say it happens, birds, lizards, even mice sometimes meet the wrong wire and the grid protects itself by shutting down.
But in Teshie, this one will be remembered differently.
Not for the technical fault.
But for the three explosions.
The dead transformer.
The 72 hours of darkness.
And the single, wandering chicken that brought it all will earn a place in the Teshie’s folklore.
GNA
Reporter: James Amoh Junior
Email: [email protected]
Edited by: Samuel Osei-Frempong