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.
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.
“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.
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 from Amatola Water’s Chris Nair. “Motor modification seems to be working well. All reservoirs are low and will pick up overnight.”
29.5mm at a speed of 1mm/42secs – Jim Cambray
“Had some very close lighting calls which had me removing electrical plugs from wall sockets just in case,” wrote Robin Stobbs in the group’s email.
Nick James, at Rivendell, off the N2 at the bottom of Howieson’s Poort, wrote, “The clouds poured over the hill from the north, behind our house, like an angry wave surging towards the coast, and lighting came down like there was no tomorrow.”
The area experienced a power cut that lasted until midday on Sunday 2 February.
