A lamppost fell onto a parked car in Sea Point. The City of Cape Town is on high alert after the SA Weather Service issued a weather warning for heavy downpours, windy weather and cold temperatures. Picture: Armand Hough / Independent Newspapers
The City of Cape Town said its Disaster Risk Management Centre continues to coordinate responses and assessments of weather-related impacts across the metropole.
It said the situation across the city has not changed overnight.
At the weekend, the South African Weather Service issued a level 9 weather warning.
The City’s Disaster Risk Management spokesperson, Charlotte Powell said as downpours are expected to continue throughout the day, assessments on the ground are ongoing as reports continue to come in.
“To date, 23 reports have been received relating to roof damages in a number of areas including Delft, Mitchells Plain, Khayelitsha, Blue Downs, Somerset West, and commercial properties in Strand.
“Another report has also just been received of roofs blown off in New Zone in Nomzamo. At least 13 structures have been affected. Various roadways are flooded across the city - the Roads and Stormwater Department is assisting with unblocking drains and clearing roadways,” Powell said.
She said assessments in high-risk informal settlements in Strand, Mfuleni, and Khayelitsha are being made. The Roads and Stormwater Department are issuing sandbags on request in certain areas.
“Officials are also conducting post-fire assessments in Fisantekraal, Wallacedene, and Bloekombos. Somerset West Mall remains closed due to wind damage. Engineers will make an assessment this morning,” Powell said.
The Electricity Department is attending to power outages in several areas.
Mayoral committee member for energy, Councillor Beverley van Reenen said teams are working around the clock to attend to the high volumes of weather-related electricity service requests.
“Importantly, high volumes and storm damage may lead to longer outages, and teams are only able to do repairs if it is safe enough to do so. The high wind speeds and rain have an impact on work. Gordon’s Bay and pockets of the immediate surrounding areas are experiencing a large area outage due to storm damage to Eskom’s power supply infrastructure.
“The City and the Eskom teams are attending to the damaged electricity infrastructure. A number of areas in the metro are experiencing electricity faults due to damaged infrastructure as a result of the inclement weather,” Van Reenen said.
The impacted areas include:
– Philippi
– Mfuleni
– Strand/Lwandle
– Somerset West
– Gordon’s Bay
– Silvertown
– KTC
– Gugulethu
– Mfuleni
– Fresnaye
– Athlone
– Overcome Heights
– Lansdowne
– Oranjezicht
– Rondebosch East
– Macassar beach
– Hazendal
– Bo Kaap
“Our teams are on the ground to attend to a large number of electricity outages in the metro. We have already restored power supply in a number of storm affected areas across the city and we will continue to do our best to restore supply in the remaining affected areas.
“Damaged infrastructure typically takes some time to repair. Inclement weather leads to high service request volumes and longer outage durations. Where damage to infrastructure is concerned, it is unfortunately not possible to give accurate restoration times. We thank residents for their patience while we attend to all repairs.
“Residents are reminded to only use one reporting channel when reporting faults to the City so that delays in attending to duplicate service requests are avoided as far as possible,” Van Reenen said.
For service requests:
Call Centre: 0860 103 089
SMS: 31220 (Please note the free SMS service does not apply)
Email: power@capetown.gov.za
e-Services: www.capetown.gov.za/servicerequests
robin.francke@iol.co.za
IOL