Cape Town - The City of Cape Town has reiterated its warning for residents to be extremely cautious today and throughout the week as certain communities and areas are expected to experience adverse weather conditions.
In its advisory on Monday morning, the City said that its teams and officials were on standby to assist residents as the South African Weather Service (Saws) had issued an advisory for level 5 damaging winds.
The advisory indicated that the wind could potentially cause damage to formal and informal housing structures, electrical and communication infrastructure and uproot trees.
In the Saws direct weather report, a cold front was expected to affect the Cape provinces from yesterday, resulting in rainy, cold and windy conditions, while the rest of the country would experience fine and cool weather.
City of Cape Town Disaster Risk Management Centre spokesperson Charlotte Powell said that since the City’s last update at the weekend, the centre had recorded additional incidents of flooded roadways in Uitsig and Silversands, as well as flooding in Kosovo informal settlement in Philippi.
She said: “We have received reports of road closures on Victoria Road between the N2 and Link Road in the Somerset West area as well as Price and Schoonstat in the Constantia area. Govan Mbeki and Duinefontein roads are flooded in both directions and both lanes were closed.
“We also have reports of a tree across the roadway on Plateau Road at the entrance to Cape Point and Redhill as well as on Princess Ann and the M3 in Rosebank, where a tree has fallen on a vehicle. Fortunately, no injuries were reported,” Powell said.
She also revealed that the City had received reports of a flooded road next to Old Mutual Head Quarters on the corner of Jan Smuts Drive and Mutual Way.
The water is rising, putting an electricity kiosk at risk of flooding, she said, adding that City departments were still busy with mopping up operations across all affected areas.
“Radio Tygerberg has started a blanket drive and has three thousand blankets, which it will deliver to humanitarian relief organisations in affected communities,” Powell said.
Meanwhile, in addition to its damaging winds and cold front warnings, Saws is also cautioning residents of damaging waves, and difficulty in navigation for small vessels and personal watercraft like kayaks.
“These vessels may be at risk of taking on water and capsizing in a locality. Localised disruptions to small harbours and ports and disruption to beachfront activities are likely,” Saws said.
Cape Town’s cold and windy weather forecast is expected to continue throughout the rest of the week, with temperatures peaking at their highest only on Thursday at 20ºC and the lowest on Tuesday at 9ºC.