Johannesburg - Nancefield Hostel dwellers are living in fear of more torrential rains and possible flooding after this past weekend’s devastation which left at least 300 families destitute.
One of the victims of the floods, Xolani Thusi, said his house was flooded after Friday’s heavy downpour which left his television set and fridge badly damaged.
He said his bed was still wet from the floods and to this day, he does not know what will happen should the rain come back.
City of Joburg Housing MMC Mlungisi Mabaso said residents were yet to be evacuated to the Nancefield Hall as they wanted to clean up their homes before being evacuated. He said should there be a need, the residents would be accommodated at the Dlamini multi-purpose Centre as the refurbishement of the Nancefield Hall was still ongoing.
“I am deeply devastated by these floods. I can tell you now, my television set and my fridge have been damaged and there is no way that I will be able to repair them. I will have to buy a new fridge and new TV as they were badly damaged. Even my bad is currently wet and who knows when my bed will be dry as the weather is very unpredictable these days,” Thusi said.
He said it was not the first time that the hostel had been affected by floods, adding that should heavy rains return, they will be in the same situation again.
“We had a similar situation in 2010. We also lost everything during that time. We do not know what is going to happen now because there have been promises of relocation in the past, but nothing had come of it. Even now, we do not know what is going to happen,” he said.
Tisha Shange, an induna at the hostel, said many families were struggling to make ends meet and it would be difficult to regain some of the household items they had lost in the floods.
“This is not the first time this has happened. It has been more than 10 years that we were promised to be relocated elsewhere, but nothing has happened. Should the authorities offer to relocate us elsewhere, we are more than prepared to do because, the floods are affecting us after one of the dams nearby burst on Friday resulting in the worst floods around here,” Shange said.
Gauteng Human Settlements MEC Lebogang Mabaso and Transport MMC Funzi Ngobeni visited the flood-ravaged hostel.
Mabaso said the city and the province alongside national government would have to find ways of assisting the affected members of the community.
“At this point we are not sure about the figures but this is a big problem that requires the help of all spheres of government. We need to ensure that we look at both the short-term and long-term solutions,” he said.
Mabaso said they were still to evacuate the residents as some of them wanted to assess the damage to their homes themselves before being relocated.
“We had a meeting with the MEC that there should be a technical team that should be established so that the city and the province can complement each other in terms of redeveloping the hostel. There is an assessment that the province assess all city-owned hostels and we will require their intervention and some resources for us to move ahead with redevelopment of hostels.”
Many believe that the delay in completing the construction of the Klipsruit Valley Road is partly to blame for the floods.
Ngobeni said the weather had affected the completion of the road which was supposed to be at the end of this month. He said as things stood, the road would be completed in February.
The Star