After numerous cases of damage, accidents and roads that were closed due to the floods over the past weekend, most of the residents now demand answers and an explanation of what caused this catastrophe.
Rumors are circulating in and around eMalahleni that the cause of the bridge that collapsed along with the damaged roads was caused by storm water pipes that were clogged.
“All I can think of what the problem may be is bad maintenance from the municipality’s side. For years all I asked is to trim the trees hanging over my wall. I even offered to do it myself but apparently it’s against the law. I would then not even start with the pipes that were blocked under the bridges,” said Mr Lee Janse van Rensburg an unhappy resident in Blanchville.
On Saturday, March 12 Mr Amos Mahlangu the owner of the taxi, which together with the bridge that collapsed on Friday also said that,
“the municipality must ensure that the roads and bridges in eMalahleni are safe for residents to use.”
Many residents were in abuzz on the social network, Facebook giving their opinions about the Municipality of eMalahleni. It all came to maintaining the town better and actually doing maintenance where needed so that fatal incidents such as the bridge that collapsed will not occur again.
“I stay up the road of Raadsaal and was not actually affected by the flooding water. But in the 34 years that I have stayed in this neighborhood I see how the residents in the streets are suffering from the damages as a result of the blockade under the bridges. If it’s just raining hard then the manholes begins to flow over,” said Mr Edmond Alhers.
“We have called the municipality so many times to report this problem in our neighborhood, but there are always excuses, postponements or you are just ignored plainly,” said Ms Dina Pienaar.
“At the end of the day the municipality owes the residents that pays taxes, electricity and water an explanation and answers. They should stop talking and start doing,” said an anonymous resident.
The municipal manager, Mr Theo van Vuuren has responded to the most wanted answers from the public.
“The cause of the bridge collapsing was because it is the culvert not a bridge which has collapsed in Blanchville along Second Street and this was due to the storm experienced on Friday evening resulting in the area flooding. This mostly affected the Die Heuwel and Blanchville area. Houses got flooded along the stream in the area. From pre-assessment by the Technical Services Department of the municipality lead by the Director, Mr Kgodiso Mashile who also went out to the scene that same evening while it was still flooding witnessed everything it is presumed that the culvert along the Second street got blocked by the trees and rumble from upstream which then the embankment of the road acted as a dam which was not stable enough to sustain the pressure and the part on top of the culvert was cracked and it all got washed away down the stream,” said Van Vuuren.
Further on Van Vuuren explained what the municipality is going to do about this incident,
“the municipality has blocked access to the road and alternative street can be used while working on the plan to reconstruct the culvert. Second Street is also classified as major route in to eMahlahleni as it also links the Old Middleburg road and the suburbs in the North-East parts of town. We will be exploring funding options to secure funding to rebuild the road and the culverts. At this stage we cannot yet provide a full cost estimate nor time frame but safe to say the damage is more than R5 million.”
Van Vuuren also added that
“this incident was a natural cause as it was a storm and we cannot assure to be able to prevent storm happening however the municipality is assessing preventative measures of flooding which should reduce the risk of properties badly getting affected like it is now. As the storm and resulting volume of flood water were exceptional it is very difficult to plan and prevent such an occurrence. The localized area in which the storm and storm damage occurred concentrated storm water at much higher volumes as ever could be anticipated for these streets and stream. Normal park clearing and maintenance will be continued in future but it must be cautioned that no level of maintenance will prevent similar situation to occur if it rains that much in the localized area as what has happened last week,” he concluded.
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