Cape Town - The City of Cape Town’s Disaster Risk Management Centre (DRMC) has announced that it received no activations for damage to properties, infrastructure and persons last night as a result of ongoing weather conditions.
DRMC spokesperson Sonica Lategan said while the City had noted numerous incidents of flooding on roads across the city, Cape Town had experienced a reprieve from rain overnight calming matters on the ground.
Lategan said moving into today, the DRMC would continue facilitating assessments across the city to determine the extent to which communities have been impacted.
She said: “Once reports are received of flooding, the DRMC and Informal Settlements Management branch deploy officials to conduct assessments so that requests for relief can be submitted to SASSA. Given the scale of the weather impacts, these assessments do take some time to complete.”
According to the city, assessments to date indicate that more than 14 000 structures have been impacted by varying degrees of flooding or wind damage.
While the city has been actively working to attend to communities in need, Lategan commented that the local municipality had also activated charity and humanitarian organisations, including Gift of the Givers, Ashraful Aid, Mustadafin, Islamic Relief, Alimdaad and the Warehouse to respond to increasing calls for assistance.
Lategan said: “Over the past two days, our NGO partners have facilitated soft relief, handing over more than 20 000 meals, 2550 blankets and 2450 beanies to affected communities in Khayelitsha, Lwandle, Gugulethu, Philippi, Masiphumelele and Tafelsig, amongst others.”
“The Disaster Coordinating Committee continues to oversee the City’s response to the prevailing weather conditions. Residents are reminded to please log service requests via the numerous voice, text and online channels,” she said.
The City’s Safety and Security Mayco member JP Smith said: “Our Disaster Management Centre is working all out, also coordinating with all our other city services to formulate engineering measures and unorthodox solutions in emergencies.
“Yesterday, I travelled along with our Disaster Management members to some of the areas as we assess the extent of the situation. Our canals and inland river systems were never meant to handle great volumes and sustained over such a period. With the surrounding terrain unable to absorb any more rain, this flows directly as 'run-off.
“On Tuesday afternoon, some areas had already recorded a massive 67mm rainfall. And it's said it will get worse. The next coming days will be trying and strenuous for all our teams,” Smith said.
While the metro experienced lesser rainfall overnight, today's rainfall will continue throughout the day leading into tomorrow (Thursday) as forecast by the South African Weather Office (Saws), which announced Level 8 disruptive rainfall for tomorrow, July 11.