WATCH: River of sewage floods Warner Beach flats
Irate residents explained that this is not the first time they have had sewage flooding their parking area and garages.
THE residents of Parker Gardens flats and others living near the top of Merritt Avenue, Warner Beach experienced a pungent smell of sewage from Tuesday, 21 August evening around 9pm and awoke on Wednesday morning to find a river of sewage flowing into the flat’s parking lot.
The sewage flowed from a pumphouse situated on the property above it, which frequently poses problems.
Watch the pump house overflowing:Â
Irate residents explained that this is not the first time they have had sewage flooding their parking area and garages.
Resident Justin Imeson said some 13 residents of the flats as well as those living nearby reported the situation to the relevant departments on Tuesday night and received reference numbers. Regardless, none of the city’s representatives had been on site to assess the situation or help when the Sun arrived at about 8.30am on Wednesday morning.
“In the past when this happened I asked those responsible to divert the drainage so instead of flowing down into our lot and flooding our garages, it could flow down the street,” said Imeson. “They just repaired a part of the station they believed was problematic and never actually redirected the drainage.”
The flooded parking and garages:
Imeson explained the flats now have to fight their insurance to cover the imaginably high costs of a professional cleaning service to come in and sanitise the mess. This ongoing occurrence poses more than mere inconvenience but also a severe health risk to those affected.
Cllr Andre Beetge was astounded when he saw the footage of the flowing sewage. He forwarded on the Sun’s footage to both the area supervisor and engineer for immediate attention and requested an implementation plan to alleviate a future recurrence. By 10am, the city department arrived at the flats and began removing the sewage water with the use of a tanker.
“While the correct procedures were carried out, the resident didn’t elaborate the full extent of the problem,” he said.
“Complaints are normally recorded and attended in sequence of report, unless the situation is that it has to be escalated for immediate attention. When the footage was seen, the problem was immediately escalated to the local area’s water engineer and supervisor and flagged for attention by a local dayshift team.
By 10am the area engineer confirmed he was on site with a team, that the overflow had been stopped, they were busy with a cleanup and that the department would render assistance to residents with claims for related damages through the EWS insurance department.”
Residents can direct enquiries regarding assistance for possible claims to the office of the waste water engineering on mthoko.ncwane@durban.gov.za.
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