The Western Cape’s chief director of disaster management, Colin Deiner, has said that damage assessments have already begun but warned it would take some time before funding is made available.
The damage caused by the recent storms has been estimated to be more than R1 billion.
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‘In some areas, the water is still at levels that make it impossible to reach people. So, we will be doing assessments continuously with affected municipalities,’ said Deinar.
As reported by News24, the provincial government would ‘examine the assessments’ to ensure they were part of the current damage.
‘We then have to look at our own funding, at what we can cover with our own funding within the province and within the municipalities,’ said Deiner.
‘And then a request will go to National Treasury through the National Disaster Management Centre for additional funding,’ he added.
‘They will assess that funding before we get to the point where it is made available. We must also have business plans on how we are going to utilise that funding to improve on the replacement construction that needs to happen,’ he added.
The WC provincial government said that the City of Cape Town was the ‘worst affected by the recent storms’, with 100 000 residents that were affected and 33 000 structures that were damaged.
The provincial government’s disaster risk management centre stated that departments were still busy with damage assessments and costing.
Due to the impact of the heavy downpours, several roads were closed, as well as infrastructure that suffered significant damage.
Citrusdal was among the worst-affected areas, which was cut off completely due to flooding.
Tertuis Simmers, Infrastructure MEC, said that engineers were assessing the infrastructure as the water level caused by the weather dropped.
‘Estimates of costs indicate it may well be substantially higher than the 2023 and 2022 floods,’ said Simmers.
Before the Western Cape was declared a state of disaster, Velenkosini Hlabisa, the cooperative governance and traditional affairs minister, visited affected communities to see the extent of the damage that was caused by the severe storms.
On Monday, he ‘awarded the province’ with a disaster declaration.
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Picture: Ziyaad Douglas / Gallo Images