Emergency services teams had their work cut out for them on Monday responding to a trail of destruction across the province, including rescuing children trapped in houses in Strand while attending to flooded roads, uprooted trees and damaged infrastructure including Eskom power lines.
The power utility was forced to suspend load shedding in the Western Cape and the Eastern Cape to ensure technical teams restored the supply of electricity safely.
Initially about 82 000 Eskom customers across the province were without power as the extreme weather ravaged the power utility’s network. About 43 000 of these were in Khayelitsha.
By the evening, Eskom said it stepped up efforts to restore electricity supply to a large portion of its customer base in Khayelitsha and the Overstrand.
“Due to a slight improvement in the weather conditions, Eskom technicians were able to restore power supply to more than 35 000 customers in Khayelitsha.
“Teams are still out in the field to bring back the remaining Khayelitsha customers who are affected. The estimated time for restoration has not yet been determined for the remaining customers.
“In the Overstrand area, electricity to the towns of Hawston, Kleinmond and Vyeboom was restored, with efforts to restore power to the remaining towns in the region to resume as soon as flooding subsides at the Lourensrivier substation.
The electricity network remains vulnerable as parts of the Western Cape province continue to experience inclement weather,” the power utility said in a statement.
By Monday afternoon, the South African Weather Service (SAWS) had advised that the “rainfall over Cape Town should start subsiding by evening with the wind speeds of between 40 and 60 kilometres an hour persisting for the next few hours.”
City Disaster Risk Management spokesperson Sonica Lategan said the city had experienced widespread impacts because of the inclement weather since Sunday.
“The Disaster Coordinating Committee was activated on Sunday, and remains in effect to manage the impacts.
Teams have started work to address the impacts, where the prevailing weather conditions allow,” she said.
Emergency services assisted six children trapped in three different houses in Strand and evacuated them to Strand Fire station.
“Reports have been received of a house in Sir Lowry’s Pass Village that is busy collapsing. The residents have been evacuated. Structural engineers have been approached to attend to the situation. There has been a request for evacuation from Faure and Sandvlei.
Emergency teams have been informed to assist. Mudslides have been reported in Andrews Road, Hout Bay and on Ou Kaapse Weg,” the City said.
Teams were conducting assessments in a number of formal and informal settlements, and humanitarian relief providers were also activated.
The provincial department of Local Government said following an emergency meeting, the Provincial Disaster Management Centre coordinated a proactive response strategy which included several national and provincial departments, the National Disaster Management Centre, SAWS, SANDF, police, NSRI, as well as district municipality disaster centres.
MEC Anton Bredell said: “The next 12 hours will be very difficult. But our emergency teams have done an outstanding job in saving lives”.
The South African National Roads Agency SOC Limited (SANRAL) also cautioned road users about various roads being closed.
SANRAL project manager Keenan Walbrugh said in the Overberg, the N2 section 2 was closed in Bot River after a section of the pavement was washed away in the early hours of Monday when the Bot River burst its banks, causing high levels of water to flow over the road.
Taiwan informal settlement resident in Khayelitsha, Ndibulele Wababa said: “We have no electricity. I was also battling to take out water from inside my house, I think I took out about 160 litres of water.
“Zola Square in Taiwan is severely affected with thousands of residents having abandoned their homes. We are anticipating that there will be more damage, people are heartbroken. Some areas are even inaccessible, we have stormwater drains that are blocked, so it’s really hard. Sunday night was the worst, it was really hard because we slept in fear that our shacks would be destroyed by the wind and rain,” he said.
The City has urged residents to report any incident presenting a risk by contacting the Public Emergency Communication Centre on 021 480 7700.
Cape Times