Cape Town mayor Patricia de Lille says R3m has already been spent to provide relief to flood-hit city residents.
|||Cape Town - The City of Cape Town has already spent R3 million to provide storm relief to the 18 000 residents affected by the weekend’s storm, says Cape Town mayor Patricia de Lille.
The city had been warned of the storm and prepared for it.
“However, the magnitude of the floods and our stretched resources meant that we were not always able to assist all residents as quickly as we wanted to. To this end, we are grateful to all residents and community organisations who offered their assistance under very difficult conditions to ensure that we provided social relief to as many affected residents as practically possible,” she said.
As the city and residents started mopping up on Monday, new damage was reported. A building in Bree Street, which once housed the infamous Moulin Rouge strip club, partly collapsed on Monday morning. No one was injured, although a Toyota Yaris parked alongside the building was badly damaged.
Maxine Jordaan, spokeswoman for the city’s traffic services, confirmed that all roads other than Chapman’s Peak Drive had been re-opened. Rockfalls and mudslides were still being cleared from the drive on Monday.
Meanwhile, the Western Cape Disaster Management Centre has confirmed extensive flooding occurred across the Cape Winelands, Overberg and Eden District municipalities.
Informal settlements in Caledon, Gansbaai, Mount Pleasant, Hermanus, Barrydale and Swellendam were worst affected and the railway line at Caledon was damaged.
On Tuesday afternoon, Provincial Traffic said several roads remained closed because of flooding, including the R44 near Kleinmond, the R43 between Stanford and Hermanus, and the Franschhoek Pass between Franschhoek and Villiersdorp.
daneel.knoetze@inl.co.za
Cape Argus