Africa-Press – South-Africa. Several areas across Cape Town have either been left without water or with low water pressure due to essential maintenance happening on the Cape Flats bulk water network.
According to the City of Cape Town, the maintenance work will last until Monday and residents are advised to store water in clean, sealed containers in advance.
Water and Sanitation MMC Zahid Badroodien said residents would start to experience the impact of lower water pressures in the identified areas from Friday, as the water was drained from the affected bulk water pipelines. He added that water supply was being rerouted to their areas, with the exception of Schaapkraal, Peacock Close and Pelican Heights.
“We anticipate that the most impact will be on Saturday when the actual maintenance happens, and then it will start improving again late on Sunday when the water starts filling the distribution pipeline again. Our teams will be working around the clock to ensure the work is completed as soon as possible. We thank residents for the patience they displayed during the recent test shutdowns on this supply line, and ask for the same level of co-operation during this operation,” he said.
Badroodien said the City regretted the inconveniences and reiterated that all consumers ultimately would benefit from the improvements to the water supply infrastructure network.
Low water pressure, which may become a “trickle flow” at times, is anticipated in the following areas:
Some residents have lashed out at the City for not properly communicating with them.
Mogamat Kamedien from Wynberg east told News24 that some residents hadn’t been able to make proper provisions.
“I thought that our household was dealing with water trickle supplies, only to discover that like other residents, we will be facing a waterless weekend. If the City bureaucrats were upfront from the start, we could have made emergency provisions. I was led to believe that mostly Cape Flats communities were going to be affected,” he said.
Ernest May from Hanover Park said his water was completely switched off.
“I was affected this morning. We had no water and our area wasn’t even on the list, and it was a struggle for me to go find water because the area was affected,” he said.
A Wynberg resident who did not want to be named said they had managed to fill a few bottles of water on Thursday night, but that it was not enough for cooking and ablutions of four adults.
They said:
At the Newlands Spring, long snake-like queues started forming on Friday morning as residents collected water.
On Friday, the City said it was experiencing high water service request volumes, primarily due to disruptions in certain areas surrounding the areas affected by the 75-hour maintenance work in the Cape Flats.
“Residents in affected areas of this operation and neighbouring areas, not initially identified in the map, are advised water is currently being rerouted to help improve the water pressure in their areas, which will take a few hours.
“City teams are attending to these and we thank our customers for their understanding. Our teams will continue to do everything in their power to attend to disruptions in the shortest possible time. It is often not possible to give an exact time for restoration,” it said.
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