Cape Town – The Oudtshoorn municipality has asked residents in Blomnek and De Rust to boil their water before drinking until water quality returns to normal following heavy rains over the weekend.
Last Friday, the municipality received a weather warning indicating that torrential rain would hit the region on Saturday and Sunday. Rainfall in certain parts of Oudtshoorn measured more than 50mm on Monday morning, while the Raubenheimerdam dam levels increased from 69.7% to 75.15%.
“The Huis River, the main source of water for De rust and Blomnek, is flowing strongly and the water is murky. De Rust doesn’t have a treatment plant and the water is only disinfected by chlorination.
“The increase in murkiness doesn’t pose any direct danger but does influence the effectiveness of the chlorination,” the municipality said in a statement yesterday (Wednesday).
A 132kv-11kv transformer at Eskom tripped on Sunday morning and took about 10 hours to repair. The municipality said it provided the town with electricity on the 22kv system. However, there was only a limited amount of power available.
“Since the heavy rain and strong wind which occurred on Sunday, the control room received more than 100 reports of households and areas without electricity. Four electricians worked around the clock to attend to all reports and by 1pm on Monday there were only 18 faults which still had to be addressed.”
About 183 gumplus (waterproof plastic sheets) were distributed between Sunday and Monday and roof damage was reported in the Blackjoint, Kanaal- and GG Camp areas, as well as Volmoed, Kliplokasie and Bongolethu.
The Vehicle Testing Station at the Oudtshoorn Traffic Department is also currently also closed until further notice due to water damage to the equipment.
Meiringspoort was closed from Sunday afternoon until Monday afternoon but is now open for traffic.
“The municipality wants to bring it to the attention of all drivers to please make sure that when they are in Meiringspoort and it starts raining heavily to please drive through immediately. Don’t stop for the scenery or the waterfall to ensure not getting trapped. The low-water bridges in Meiringspoort tend to overflow very fast and make it difficult or impossible to drive through.
“All the low bridges at the Grobelaarsriver in Oudtshoorn were overflowing which led to many roads in and around the Greater Oudtshoorn area being flooded and closed to traffic. Rocks have fallen onto the road surface a few kilometres outside Oudtshoorn on the way to George.”
The South African Weather Service (SAWS) has, meanwhile, issued a yellow level 2 warning for severe thunderstorms resulting in possible flash flooding and infrastructure damage over the Cape Winelands, Swartland, Swellendam and Cape Agulhas municipalities of the Western Cape on yesterday (Wednesday) morning.
Cape Times