Cat Haven: Saturday’s Western Power planned outage expected to cause major disruptions to WA charity

Cat Haven will be forced to take “urgent action” to protect vulnerable cats and kittens with Saturday’s planned power outage putting the charity under pressure.

Western Power has given Cat Haven $2000 in compensation but the charity said running the generator required to maintain critical care would cost much more.

They have appealed to Western Power “several times” to move the outage until after work hours on Saturday, but their pleas have “fallen on deaf ears”.

Cat Haven marketing and fundraising manager Amber Ashford said: “We just hope we can get through the day with the generator being able to cope with our load.”

The cats, some of which are in neonatal incubators, rely on continuous power for survival.

The shelter, vet clinic, and essential medical equipment all need power and the outage is expected to last longer than the backup supply can handle.

Cat Haven’s chief executive officer Roz Robinson told The West Australian: “We’ve got a large site here. We’ve got five sheds of cats. We’ve got a theatre. We had consults booked for tomorrow. We just don’t know if the generator is going to be adequate, so we’ve had to source a separate site to move cats out to do so we can adopt them out.”

Saturday is the charity’s busiest adoption day, and Ms Robinson said if they can’t adopt cats out tomorrow, they can’t take any more in next week.

Swan Settlers Market in the Swan Valley has offered their venue hall to house kittens and cats who are ready for adoption on Saturday so they can still find homes and allow the generators to focus on essential operations.

Although Cat Haven is very grateful for the generosity, they are aware being moved will be stressful for the cats.

“From our perspective, it is just a major, major disruption,” Ms Robinson said.

Cat Haven is calling for community support, asking people to head down to the adoption day in the Swan Valley.

Ms Robinson said if the outage had been done after work hours, it would have avoided the disruption to the key adoption day and the disruptions to the planned surgeries.

A Western Power spokesperson said: “Cat Haven was notified on the 27th February that a planned outage would be required to undertake network upgrades in the area. This outage will affect 30 other customers in addition to Cat Haven.”

“Where planned outages cannot be avoided, Western Power provides eligible small businesses up to $1000 towards the cost of hiring or purchasing a generator. In this instance, Cat Haven has been offered $2000 to assist,” the spokesperson said.

They said all efforts were taken to minimise the duration of planned outages and encouraged customers to contact them if they require help planning for an outage.