WEATHER GURU | Politicians should turn attention to informal settlements in high flood risk areas

While the Western Cape is experiencing weather of note, causing chaos and destruction, we here in the Eastern Cape cannot say the same.

Our weather has been anything but interesting of late.

After that nice rain at the beginning of the month and a spit and spat here and there, nothing spectacular occurred.

Over the past two weeks, maximum temperatures have remained around 20°C and minimums around 10°C, with the coldest being 7°C.

Now, we have our esteemed politicians blaming the Cape Doctor for climate change.

I am still waiting for them to blame the Donald Trump assassination attempt on climate change.

As the saying goes: “One chain does not make a prison” hence one event does not constitute climate change.

In the Bay and many other parts of the country, including Cape Town, the politicians should rather be concerned with informal settlements in high flood risk areas.

I wonder what these politicians would have said about the Great Gale of 1902 and Great Flood of 1908, let alone the tragedy of 1968 and 1981.

In our own metro, we see many recipes for disaster, most especially in the Chatty area.

One can understand informal dwellings appearing all around, but I have noticed RDP structures within the flood lines and even formal housing encroaching very close to those flood lines.

Apparently numerous areas in Despatch and Kariega were built within these flood lines.

Then illegal structures and structures not built according to regulations are also factors that contribute towards more severe flooding, as was seen in the recent flooding events in Kariega.

We have not even started with municipal infrastructure.

Without questioning the possibility of unqualified contractors, one just has to look at potholes, dirty drains, roads cambers that will dam water instead of directing it to drains and even drains that are so badly placed that they serve no purpose.

Then we come to stories about unscrupulous SME contractors who apparently, with the World Cup, dumped tons of unused premixed concrete into stormwater drains which has now rendered them partially or completely ineffective.

This is reported as being most especially along the IPTS routes.

Then we have the ever-present hot potato in the house, namely, uncontrolled exponential population growth.

This in essence is the largest driver of climate change, as the more people there are on earth the higher the demand for water, food and industry which puts an exponential demand on the need for energy, of which fossil fuels make up a large part.

With the growth of our concrete jungles there is an increase in paved areas, providing more and quicker runoff, which leads to increased demand on many stormwater systems that were not designed to handle those capacities.

The fact that we have had more record low rainfall figures since the turn of the century than in the previous century in our area, can be construed as climate change.

A one in five, 10, 20 or even 50 years event cannot be given the same status.

Combined dam levels:

Algoa System: Down from 78.49% to 78.16%

This week in history:

2002: Thousands of people left homeless in the Bay and surrounds due to strong damaging winds.

Weather Safety Tips:

June 2017 saw the Woodridge fires, in winter the veld is dry. Never leave an outdoor fire unattended.

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