Durban - A METEOROLOGIST’S warnings a few days before and during the deadly floods saved about 32 members of a Cape Town family who had travelled to Durban for a reunion.
The buildings they were in collapsed due to landslides, but all cheated death by heeding alerts from a social media group called Severe Weather and Information Centre South Africa.
The group’s administrator, Angelo Ricardo Hoorn, is also a disaster risk reduction specialist and is completing a PhD in Disaster Risk Reduction later in the year. He started issuing warnings six days in advance.
According to Hardus Gerhardus, who missed the family trip, he remained glued to the social media page when the rain became severe, keeping his family updated on Hoorn’s findings. “When disaster looked imminent, Hoorn asked the South African Weather Service (Saws) to upgrade their warnings because he felt their warnings did not justify what was about to happen and was already happening.
“Because of Hoorn’s warnings, they evacuated the buildings on the Friday before the flooding started,” said Gerhardus. Hoorn created the weather group in 2020 to teach the public about weather patterns in and around the country.
He wanted ordinary citizens to have knowledge of and understand the complex weather information. “It's no use using advanced meteorological terminology, graphs and mathematical formulae when only a few understand it. The main purpose of the group is to keep the general public informed of daily weather, when severe weather threatens to issue early warnings, and to help mitigate the impact of storms by building more resilient communities,” he said.
Hoorn said in the days leading up to the heavy rain his warnings were ignored by some, and that regrettably, official warnings from the Saws also came too late. He explained that a Yellow Level 2 warning issued by the Saws when the rains began was not accurate, based on his readings. “I advised the Saws in my personal capacity to revise and amend warnings to at least an Orange Level 5 immediately, which they did.
They later upgraded to warning levels Orange Level 8 and Orange Level 9,” he said. Hoorn said he was humbled by the recent praise and grateful that he was able to save live
SUNDAY TRIBUNE