The "No entry" sign has gone up at Amanzimtoti's premier tourist attraction; the Main Beach, where the sea has reclaimed 50m of the beach and the breaking waves have caused extensive damage to the promenade's retaining walls.
And, as a delegation of city officials and engineers were inspecting the devastation at the beach on Friday, where tons of sand have also been displaced, the verandah at the lifeguard tower - already damaged by the pounding waves - gave way, prompting immediate precautionary measures to be taken to secure the building.
Rocks were quickly brought in to halt further damage and wire netting and the "no entry" sign replaced the red tape already strung across the promenade to prevent the public going down on to what is left of the popular beach.
Continues Below ↓
Although the lifeguards are now homeless, they are still working as swimming is still permitted to the north and at nearby Inyoni Rocks Beach.
However, while the damage is attracting many curious onlookers, a tourism expert said that the local industry could be affected if it took some time to get the beach back to normal.
The damage will also delay the beach's application for Blue Flag status.
About R4-million of damage was caused to both the Inyoni Rocks and Winklespruit swimming pools during March's freak wave action, which caused billions of rands of damage at various beaches along the coastline. Both pools have yet to be repaired.
Toti beach manager Mickey Sadler said that a 200m-long stretch of Toti's Main Beach had been lost and the waves, particularly the high tides of recent weeks which peaked last Monday, had damaged the promenade's retaining walls, the showers and lifeguard tower.
After the verandah collapsed, "immediate action had to be taken to save what was still there", he said.
Experts generally agreed that the latest problem was a ripple effect of the unusually large tides in March.
"What has happened is that the protective banks have moved out to sea. And where the big waves normally broke about 100m out at sea, they are now breaking on the shore."
This had affected the shoreline at different beaches, Sadler explained.
"The situation needs to stabilise before we can permanently rehabilitate the area," he said, adding that this could take six days or six months.
Meanwhile, on the South Coast, 50m of a private beach at the Happy Wanderers Holiday Resort in Kelso has also been lost to the sea.
The wild waves broke the resort's large beachfront swimming pool and have "whacked" the windows of the Wrecked Heron recreational pub, forcing owners Jenny and Richard Osborne to close the pub and adjoining restaurant.
"We have to think of the safety of our guests. We would rather lose business than our good name," said Jenny Osborne.
The damage to the resort, which attracts visitors from all over the country, currently stands at about R150 000.
The couple has been forced to dismantle a deck outside the pub and remove the paving. "If the timber and paving went into the sea, it could cause damage. Dismantling it will also save us money when things settle down and we have to put everything back again," she said.
The main feature of the Wrecked Heron is The Heron, a genuine ferry which took coal workers across Durban Bay. The Heron was a unique attraction and had been used as a bar for day visitors and for guests staying at the resort.
Teams of workers filled and positioned sandbags around the front of the resort on Friday, but these precautions will be overtaken by a more sophisticated - and costly - system this week when five-ton sandbags will be put in place by a special machine.
An expert on sea currents has advised the Osbornes on where to put the sandbags and how high they must be. The couple said that while the resort had minimal damage in March, the waves had got worse over the past six weeks.
They had even lost as much as 4.5m of coast in a day and a half.
They fear that if things get worse, "the railway line near us will go".
- This article was originally published on page 2 of Daily News on July 23, 2007
|
StumbleUpon
Reddit
Digg
Delicious
Newsvine
Facebook
muti
Twitter
