There has been no fatal or serious incident across the City of Tshwane this week despite flooding in some parts of Centurion that led to road closure.
The City of Tshwane’s Department of Emergency Services had to close both sides of End Street, from Rabie and Witstinkhout due to flooding.
As a result of the road closure, motorists were urged to use alternative routes.
This was after the South African Weather Service’s issuing of a yellow level 2 warning for severe thunderstorms for parts of Gauteng, which include Johannesburg and Pretoria.
The weather service had warned of the possibility of disruptive rainfall leading to localised flooding in low-lying areas and informal settlements.
The impact of the rainfall could, according to the weather forecasters, result in poor driving conditions due to the pooling of water on roads, and reduced visibility.
In response to the warning, the City’s Department of Emergency Services said it had marshalled all its resources to deal with any eventualities likely to result from the heavy downpours.
Emergency Services spokesperson Charles Mabaso told the Pretoria News that there had fortunately not been incidents such as flooding related to the heavy rains.
“Our festive plan has been long dusted off to enable us to look at issues of possible flooding. All our stations are fully operational and our personnel’s leave days have been well managed to ensure that we have additional technicians on standby to deal with whatever eventuality,” he said.
He said the department was closely monitoring all the alerts issued by the weather service.
In addition, the department was also keeping a vigilant eye on some flood hot spots across the municipality.
One hot spot, according to Mabaso, includes the whole of Centurion which is prone to flooding because of the Hennops river running through the suburb.
Efforts were also made to monitor multiple low-lying bridges where the Hennops river runs through.
Mabaso said Rabie bridge had to be temporarily closed as a result of the rains this week.
He cited that the department would monitor Apies river running through the city centre as it could cause flooding should the rains continue.
The river, he said, ran through the Wonderboom area up to Hammanskraal township.
Possible flooding was also likely to affect Majaneng and parts of Hammanskraal, including Stinkwater which was a water-bed area and had a poor drainage system.
Mabaso said: “In Soshanguve, Block KK, the informal settlement, has the tendency of reporting flooding. Mamelodi is also known for flooding and we monitor various informal settlements there.”
Other areas were in Region 7, and included informal settlements in Zithobeni and Cullinan.
“Last week, we saw near-flooding in Hebron and Klipgat, and we are putting the area on the list of flood hot spots,” Mabaso said.
Pretoria News