Eastern Cape lashed by heavy rains

Residents of flood-prone Port St Johns were left scrambling for safety as heavy rains came bucketing down for most of Thursday.

Port St Johns Local Municipality mayor Nomvuzo Mlombile-cingo and her team were on hand to assess the damage.

Videos doing the rounds on social media showed schoolchildren and community members wading through flooded areas on their way home, while several cars were also seen trying to make their way through the water.

Mlombile-cingo said her team was working hard to ensure everyone was safe.

She said they were busy evacuating affected residents to safe areas while trying to assess damage the floods may have caused.

“The situation is bad because the community’s houses are flooded, as are the municipality’s facilities, museums and shops.

“But we are still in the process of assessing the situation.

“We saw that trees have fallen in different parts of the town, but we are clearing the damage.”

Even though it was still raining, the mayor said the rain was not as heavy as two hours before.

According to her, a report had been made to the disaster management team for intervention.

“The first thing we did was report to the district and province, but [being here] we had to call in lifesavers to help.

“The traffic officers are also hands on in helping out.

“We are assessing the damaged roads.

“We are also looking for community members who have probably lost houses as we want to take them to a safe place.

“The moment we take people to the community hall we have to provide mattresses and food, and we are in the process of doing that. For now, our main priority is to ensure they are safe.”

Mlombile-cingo said they had received no word of floodrelated accidents and fatalities, but were awaiting a report.

Heavy rain continued to pour across BCM as well on Thursday.

BCM spokesperson Samkelo Ngwenya said their disaster management team was on standby.

“Our disaster management team has a plan in place for different levels of weather alerts, and we have a system which involves external stakeholders such as the SA Weather Service, provincial disaster [management] and SAPS.”

Ngwenya said only one area had been affected by a loss of electricity as a result of the rain, but power had since been restored.

“In terms of electricity, only the Westbank area was affected,” Ngwenya said.

No major flooding was experienced, but in some parts of East London blocked drains were overflowing.

“Major construction projects will be affected by the rainy weather, including Currie Street and Settlers Way.”

The northeastern Wild Coast faces dangerous weather on Friday.

Most of eastern half of the province was under a yellow level 1 SA Weather Service Service warning for wind, rain, and flooding. But for Ingquza Hill municipality, especially Lusikisiki, the warning was at a serious orange level 6.

Port St Johns, already overrun with floods, faced more rain and a yellow level 2 warning.

King Sabata Dalindyebo, including Mthatha, was on a yellow level 2 warning for localised flooding in settlements, dangerous low bridges, slippery roads — tar and gravel — and reduced visibility.

Buffalo City Metro faced yellow level 1 damaging winds, difficult seas, moorings that could break and communication systems disrupted.

Small vessels were urged to stay off the open sea and to use “ample fenders” when mooring in sheltered water.