Blocked drains cause chaos in EL

MOP-UP operations began throughout East London early yesterday morning after Sunday night’s heavy rains left many homes flooded. According to the weather bureau, 50mm of rain fell in the East London. Residents in Buffalo Flats, Egoli and Wilsonia were up all night on Sunday trying to block water from flowing into their houses but in many cases their attempts failed.

“At 2am we were up trying to get the water out, but everything in this house is ruined now,” said Buffalo Flats resident Danie Orlein. Orlein, who has been living in the house with her family for over 20 years, said it was the second time their home had been flooded this year. “We asked the municipality to fix our storm water drains after the first flood in July but they never got back to us about that.” Ward 19 councillor Derek Green said he had made many attempts to get BCM to fix the storm water drains. “Nothing has happened and this is bad – now the water goes inside people’s houses because of blocked drains.”

“Our water drains were last cleaned in 2009, this year we’ve been hit by floods two times and BCM has not done anything,” said another resident. Residents in Fynbos and Egoli also complained about the state of their storm-water drains. Rainey Doyle said they only had one small drain in their street, making it difficult for them when hit by heavy rains. “The water came down straight to our house last [Sunday] night and there was no way we could stop it,” she said. Ward 10 councillor Irene Brauns visited homes around the area that were badly affected by the heavy rains. “I’ve reported the issue of the storm-water drains several times, even before I was a councillor,” said Brauns. “Nothing has happened since then,” she said Brauns, adding that Egoli was the worst affected area that she had visited.

Vincent Park shopping centre was also affected by Sunday night’s heavy rains. Centre man ager Joseph Parsley (SUBS:CORR) said the cen tre began mop-up operations in the early hours of yesterday morning. “The only shops that are still busy with mop-up op erations are Mr Price and Clicks – they should be open tomorrow [today] (SUBS: TUESDAY),” he said. In Nahoon, houses in Beach Road were also left flooded, allegedly due to blocked storm- water drains. BCM spokesman Samkelo Ngwenya said the metro had iden tified the issue of blocked drains and the engineering team would investigate the matter. “We are going to fix all the affected roads in the metro,” he said.

Source: dispatch.co.za ; POLISWA PLAATJIE - 15 November 2011