Power cuts were followed by water outages after a storm struck Grahamstown and its surrounds in the late afternoon of Saturday 1 February.
Power cuts were followed by water outages after a storm struck Grahamstown and its surrounds in the late afternoon of Saturday 1 February.
Grocott’s Mail’s rain-monitoring team measured 37mm in 45 minutes, along with hail. They described near-gale-force winds that drove the rain horizontally. Floods prevented motorists from commuting and some vehicles had to be towed out of the water.
The storm followed blazing heat in the previous week with temperatures reaching a scorching 35 degrees Celsius.
Makana Municipality apologised to customers on Sunday for power and water outages in the city, explaining that three electricity poles in the Howieson’s Poort area had been broken in the storm.“In most cases when there is a storm like that, you find that many trees fall over due to the high winds and power lines snap,” said Makana Municipality Fire Department Chief William Welkom.
“They are being replaced with new ones by the Makana electrical team and they are hopeful it will be complete by this evening,” Communications Officer Yoliswa Ramokolo wrote in an email on Sunday 2 February.
She said the high-level reservoir serving the army base, industrial area, prison, riding school, Somerset Heights and Cradock Heights was empty. Waainek water treatment works was still offline as a result of the storm.
“However, Howieson’s Poort is still running and filling up the lay dams at the Waainek plant,” Ramokolo wrote.
She said the Makana electrical team and Amatola Water were working around the clock to normalise the situation.
Third year Rhodes student Joseph Wagner was ankle deep in water by the end of the storm. “I was chilling during the power cut and realised the roof was leaking and when I checked I saw that the roof was caving in from the pressure of the water."
Wagner’s room, lounge and kitchen were flooded. He blamed clogged-up drains for the implosion.
Although Wagner is guaranteed compensation for storm damage from his landlord, many less fortunate Grahamstonians will have to dig deep into their pockets to repair the damage, or live with the ruins until further notice.
Grahamstown can expect brilliant sunshine from Monday through Friday next week with a maximum temperature of 31 degrees on Tuesday, but will also experience a couple morning showers on Sunday.
On her popular Facebook page, Grahamstown resident Daphne Timm reported that power was restored to Waainek water treatment works at 5.45pm on Sunday 2 February.
“Flow from Howieson’s Poort is 104 litres per second with delivery valve fully open,” she posted, quoting Amatola Water’s Chris Nair: “Motor modification seems to be working well. All reservoirs are low and will pick up overnight.”
Grocott’s Mail's rain-monitoring team measured 37mm in 45 minutes, along with hail. They described near-gale-force winds that drove the rain horizontally.Weather monitor Jim Cambray said that 29.5mm of rain fell at a speed of 1mm/42secs.
Robin Stobbs of the Grocott's Mail weather-monitoring team wrote: “Had some very close lighting calls which had me removing electrical plugs from wall sockets just in case.”
Nick James, at Rivendell, off the N2 at the bottom of Howieson’s Poort, wrote in the team's email: “The clouds poured over the hill from the north, behind our house, like an angry wave surging towards the coast, and lightning came down like there was no tomorrow.”
