Garden Route | Karoo storms: Day 10 and clean up continues

GARDEN ROUTE NEWS - Today marks day ten of the incident. With the weather forecast received from the South African Weather Services indicating clear weather conditions over the weekend.

More rain is expected next week Tuesday, with a forecast of 40 to 70mm rain across the coastal areas of the Garden Route.

Mopping up of trees and debris is continuing across the Garden Route. All municipalities are hard at work to clear trees.

Chippers have been rented and additional teams, to cut trees, have been acquired. Many of the areas are opening their waste sites to be available throughout the weekend on extended hours.

This will allow people that want to drop-off wood chips and green waste to these sites, to do so.

In addition, municipalities and teams are hard at work to fix and restore electricity lines. Officials are in constant communication with Eskom.

It is noted that people are frustrated since some areas are still without electricity for 10 days, therefore restoring electricity is currently handled as highest priority.

In some areas, farmers have established access routes for Eskom staff to reach areas to fix poles that have fallen.

"Thank you to everyone for their assistance – all these operations are communicated with Eskom to see how fast these areas can be back online."

Humanitarian assistance

Teams are currently delivering water with tankers to Sedgefield and areas in Bitou where communities are still not being supplied with water by municipalities.

Humanitarian assistance is continuing this morning. Assistance is provided to Rooiheuwel, areas in Oudtshoorn, as well as 19 drop-offs in the Langkloof area of George, namely Kamanassie, De Vlught, areas in Bo-Kouga and Haarlem.

All these areas will receive additional food parcels, food hampers and additional 200 hampers that were requested from the Department of Social Development. These hampers were delivered this morning for those areas to be addressed.

A total of 221 people are still accommodated in halls but every day 260 people in Knysna and 1500 people in Plett are still assisted through the soup kitchen.

Priorities for today

Teams are still busy removing uprooted trees, with the additional resources available. The public is urged to contact the GRDM Disaster Management Centre at 044 805 5071 / or Whatsapp 081 709 5193 where emergency assistance is required.

Road closures update:

Disaster-related updates are published by Local Government here:

The GRDM Disaster Management encourages the public to report flood-related incidents to the 24/7 Emergency Call Centre of GRM, 044 805 5071 or Whatsapp 081 709 5193.

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