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City of Joburg disaster teams on high alert as more floods, heavy rains expected

  • A van of the City of Jonhannesburg Disaster Management Team.
  • Image Credits :
  • City of Joburg Disaster Management Van Twitter @David_S_Tembe
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The City of Johannesburg says its disaster management teams remain on high alert with more heavy rain forecast over the coming days around the city.

Devastating floods and thunderstorms lashed the province last week, leaving a number of areas without electricity for prolonged periods.

Johannesburg Environment and Infrastructure Services Department spokesperson Nickolaus Bauer says, “We are dealing with an unprecedented challenge that City Power is facing. The inclement weather and the flooding have created the perfect storm alongside stage 5 and 6 load shedding and the City’s network is under severe pressure. We are dealing with a moving target of around 1000 outages because as fast as outages are resolved another fault occurs.”

He says, “There is progress being made but this is going to be a very tough week. With the level of load shedding that is going on at the moment, and I know it seems like I am just making excuses here, but we are already facing an uphill battle and load shedding – at the high levels we are experiencing – is making this job near impossible.”

On Sunday, City Power said parts of Johannesburg will remain in the dark for longer periods following last week’s devastating floods in its coverage area.

The entity says efforts to restore power are being hampered by vandalism of power supply infrastructure and acts of violence.

In the tweet below, a list of some of the adversely affected areas: 

Level 5 weather warning 

The South African Weather Service has issued an orange level 5 warning, meaning there could be severe thunderstorms in southern Gauteng.

Applied Climatologist Dr Peter Johnston elaborates: 

 

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