Africa-Press – South-Africa. The damage caused by a major storm that hit parts of Johannesburg on Friday and Saturday was so severe that authorities say another one would be a disaster.
This comes amid fears of more downpours in the city.
On Monday, City officials were inspecting damage.
The areas that were hit the hardest were Roodepoort, Hursthill, Northcliff and Lenasia, where infrastructure was severely damaged by flooding.
Hamberg Road was washed away partially after Florida Lake overflowed on Friday.
Water flows with force through an aqueduct under the road and, after the heavy rain, the pipes and electrical cables became exposed, spraying water into the air.
MMC for Environment and Infrastructure Services, Michael Sun, was in Florida in Roodepoort on Monday to see the damage.
“I don’t think the infrastructure can hold if we have another big flood. I’m worried about the flats in the area, especially with the zama zama (illegal miner) activity compromising the foundations and the lake overflowing.”
Underground tunnels for illegal mining activity have expanded under the city and on one side of Hamberg Road, an old mine dump is situated behind a block of flats.
Ward 70 councillor Caleb Finn said a body was found in a runoff stream on Monday morning but there were no further details.
“The flooding below Florida was severe on Friday during the storm. It’s still too early to say how much damage was done, but the assessments are being done,” Finn added.
He said most of the damage happened in Albertina Sisulu Road and that low-lying bridges were destroyed when waterpipes in Fleurhof were washed away.
“There’s also been no power in some areas since Friday. There are concerns about the [integrity] of dam walls too.”
City Power’s Roodepoort service delivery centre general manager, Sibusiso Xulu, said the rain had affected electrical infrastructure.
He said:
Xulu was at the Manufacta substation, where a mini substation had blown up on Saturday.
He said City Power had to use a generator to power tools to fix the problem.
To this end, Johannesburg Mayor Mpho Phalatse asked Eskom for a load shedding exemption for 72 hours so that the City could attend to outages.
Xulu said the cost of the mini substation was R700 000 and that the City had to replace four or five of them a week due to theft and vandalism.
“Load shedding is like a blank cheque to these thieves. They open the top [of the mini-substations] and extract the copper. Now that we have extended load shedding [due to the introduction of Stages 5 and 6], thieves have four hours to pick what they want.”
Xulu estimated that the price of copper was around R150 per kilogramme.
Despite the high cost of replacing the mini substations, he said, it would cost much more to assign a guard to protect the boxes because there were around 500 000 in the city.
He said the City was already spending R100 million on security and added that there were dangers involved for guards.
On Sunday, City Power had to pull four technicians from Jeppestown after gunmen robbed and assaulted them in full view of residents. One of them was seriously injured.
For More News And Analysis About South-Africa Follow Africa-Press
