Houses were flooded, several dams were breached and farmers have warned that fresh produce may be scarce as tons of vegetables rot in the ground after this week's heavy rainfall.
Houses were flooded, several dams were breached and farmers have warned that fresh produce may be scarce as tons of vegetables rot in the ground after this week's heavy rainfall.
"I haven't seen so much rain in one night since I bought this farm in 1989," said Ingram Reed, describing the heavy downpour overnight from Wednesday to Thursday. He said he recorded 170mm between 10pm and 7am when his rain gauge spilled over the top. The persistent rains falling this week did not let up during the whole night and appear to have seriously affected farmers whose vegetables are still in the ground and have become waterlogged due to the high water table.
Reed explained that the rains had so seriously damaged the access roads to his farm in Belmont Valley that he could not come to town to supply his customers. He usually delivers vegetables to Pick n Pay, Marvics, Lungi's Shop in Pepper Grove Mall and other retail outlets, but due to the dangerous state of the road he cannot take the risk of driving into town.
This means he will suffer losses as his vegetables rot either in the barn or in the ground. Another farmer, who was so depressed with the flooding on his property that he did not want to have his name published, said that as he looked out onto his potato fields all he saw was just white.
His entire crop appeared to be ruined and the flooding had broken through his dam. He said that his farm in the Southwell area had received a staggering 300mm of rain. The heavy and persistent rains caused serious damage to houses and roads throughout the Makana and Ndlambe areas.
While the Grahamstown area received enormous amounts of rain, it appears that most of the water drained off into the neighbouring streams quite well.
However, some of the coastal areas in Ndlambe Municipality appear to have been severely affected as the Kowie, Bushmans and Kariega Rivers, swollen with rains from upstream areas, surged into places that were already receiving prodigious downpours of their own.
Informal settlements in and around Sun City and Phaphamani were particularly hard hit as driving rain seeped under corrugated iron walls and dripped through makeshift roofs. As residents cleaned mud out of their shacks they showed our photographers how high the water had reached during the night.
Roads in most suburbs of Grahamstown were covered by wide puddles and potholes that seem to have grown overnight. In Extension 6, a road that is still under construction sprouted its own new potholes in sections that a contractor had left unfinished.
We received a report from Nick James on Wednesday night there was a stream of water and mud pouring across the N2 in Howieson's Poort. He said the lower part of that road was now so dangerous and slippery that a head-on collision was soon inevitable.
My pluviometer runneth over
Grocott’s Mail is one of the few newspapers in the world to have its own team of pluviometer experts who are always ready to provide readers will up to date analyses of recent rainfalls. (View our rainfall blog)
Here are comments from the team:
Nick James at Rivendell Farm: At midnight it was still pouring so I went down to the fishfarm to see what was happening. A huge wall of water was thundering over the dam spillway,18m wide by about half a metre deep, quite terrifying in the dark. In the gloom I missed my footing and fell into the 1.5m deep filtration plant we are building for the new tunnel. The water was surprisingly warm. This morning, once the mist lifted a sight for sore eyes: all the roads fully washed out into deep 0.5m deep ruts, water rushing everywhere and quite a lot of damage. Hardly surprising – we have had 240mm this month with 90mm overnight.
Nikki Kohly, Rhodes University Safety Health Environmental Officer: We measured 92 mm in the last 24 hours. It seems that Frederick Street always gets more rain than anywhere else in town. Yeah, poor Nick, slithering up and down his hill… definitely doesn't need to take a pail of water!!!
Roger Rowswell at 4A Darling Street: Not far behind, I recorded 90mm \
Robin Stobbs: I measured 80mm this morning – that makes the Grant Street total of 127.6mm over the past four days! Nick (James), can we send out a Unimog, or hovercraft perhaps – cloud base too low for a helicopter! How about the NSRI to drop off supplies and water wings? Back yard doing it's Okavango look-alike thing again so am keeping eyes peeled for crocs and/or hippos. As a PS – the year's Grant Street total so far is 588.9mm out of a 30-year average of 642mm so I expect we're going to do better than meet the average.
Michelle Griffith, Programme Support Manager: I finally have a rain gauge again and have since moved farms to Manley Flats. My poor gauge overflowed last night. I wish I'd ventured out during the night to measure and empty.
Sicelo Dyira, Umthathi Training Project Trust I can’t wait until Monday to report good news of showers that rocked our area yesterday and last night in particular, this morning the gauge overflows and I am tempted to empty it and record the readings and perhaps check the readings over the next three days. I hope this would not warrant cheating, it will be good if we get the picture of Makana together with damages caused by the rain in houses and roads.
