Cape Town - The Garden Route District Municipality has experienced severe rainfall, causing a second incident of flooding in less than a month.
This followed a revised impact-based warning for severe thunderstorms from the SA Weather Service (Saws) on Saturday. Saws said rainfall figures of more than 100mm were received and measured at its sites in the region.
Providing an update on the floods, Department of Water and Sanitation (DWS) acting provincial head Ntombizanele Bila-Mupariwa said that while heavy rains were welcome to boost water availability, water could be dangerous and potentially lethal at times.
“A fortnight ago, the Southern Cape experienced flooding, which resulted in the evacuation of people in Thembalethu, Skaapkop Valley and Pacaltsdorp and other areas.”
She said the Meiringspoort pass in the De Rust area had to be closed due to a burst in the Klaarstroom catchment leading to the river flooding, however the pass had since been reopened.
“All the major coastal dams were already full as a result of the recent high rainfall event of November 22, and due to the significant rainfall received, all of them are increasing and overflowing.
“The Provincial Disaster Management Centre (PDMC) and sector departments are visiting all the affected municipalities in the Garden Route District Municipality to verify the flood damage.”
The latest hydrological report from DWS indicates an improvement of the Gouritz River Catchment System that covers the Central Karoo, the Little Karoo and the coastal belt of the Southern Cape.
The combined dams average of the catchment system stands at 34.6% compared to 31.4% at the same time last week.
The Olifants/Doorn River Catchment on the West Coast is standing at 98%, a significant yield compared with 89% at the same time last year.
The only dams that have recorded increases of more than 5% this week are Bulshoek, Buffeljags, and Gamkapoort.
Theewaterskloof Dam, the largest dam in the Western Cape, is stable at 98.8%.
Meanwhile, the City reported that the level of dams supplying the Cape Town Metro increased by 0.1% in the past week, from 98% the previous week to 98.1%.
At the same time last year, dam levels were at 96.9%.
Daily water consumption for the same period decreased to 786 million litres per day, down from 825 million litres the week before.