Tips to help prevent flooding during rainy days
19 June 2020
The City of Cape Town performs various services to reduce the risk and impact of flooding caused by heavy rain across the metro but especially in more vulnerable areas such as informal settlements where residents have often settled in flood-prone areas or wetlands.
Various City departments such as Informal Settlements Management and Roads and Stormwater and Disaster Risk Management do their utmost to help residents, such as constructing canals to lead flood water away from affected areas where possible, helping with emergency materials such as flood kits and plastic sheeting and monitoring high risk priority areas on a daily basis to determine flooding risks while giving advice to residents on how to reduce this.
Since 1 June 2020, the City’s Informal Settlements Management Department has issued 3 962 flood kits.
‘As with most cities in South Africa, informality is a pronounced feature brought on by increased urbanisation. The associated intense demand for accommodation brings about a number of specific challenges, such as unplanned settlements that are located on flood-prone, lower lying areas or in wetlands or retention ponds. The high densities without dedicated emergency access ways also make it difficult to deliver basic and emergency services in especially times of fire and floods. Often the settlements are formed on private land or land where services cannot or may not be delivered on the land. The City does what it can to deliver housing opportunities, upgrade informal settlements and prepare for flooding and other natural disasters, and partnerships are key.
Caption: Joe Slovo informal settlement, Langa. Often when land is invaded, settlements are created on flood-prone land or wetlands, or on privately-owned land or under electricity power lines as depicted here, which mostly prevents the installation of permanent services.
‘This year is especially difficult because of the COVID-19 crisis with the risks of virus spread and City staff thin on the ground attending to all manner of crisis services. Work continues but we ask our residents and communities to help and to implement some no cost tips to reduce the risk of flooding, such as making their own sandbags and digging furrows around their dwellings as a DIY drainage system, as two ideas,’ said the City’s Mayoral Committee Member for Human Settlements, Councillor Malusi Booi.
Help to reduce flood risk:
Clear out drainage systems on properties
Raise the floor level of a structure so that it is higher than the natural ground level
Make sandbags
Dig trenches around the house to divert water away from the house
Report blocked drains, intakes and illegal dumping – illegal dumping in the stormwater canals and sewers make flooding worst
Waterproof roofs, clear gutters and remove dead tree branches
The risk of fires during winter especially is also huge. Never leave an open flame unattended.
How to make a sandbag:
1. Cut off the arms of a long-sleeved top and tie the bottom end to close it.
2. Fill up with sand. If you don’t have enough sand, use a mixture of sand and soil
3. Close the top end and place the sandbag outside and inside the door or doorway
If you do not have a long-sleeved top, you can use old pillow cases or the legs of long pants filled and tied on either of the open ends or black bags.
Emergencies can be reported to the City’s Public Emergency Communication Centre by dialing 107 from a landline or 021 480 7700 from a cellphone.
End
Published by:
City of Cape Town, Media Office
