Keurbooms Lagoon Caravan Park – Flood Aftermath

Text by Sharyn Hodges, Pictures by Christy Strever

Chris Hops of Keurbooms Lagoon Caravan Park invited ShowMe Plett on a Flood aftermath tour on 18^th July 2012, four days after the 2012 Plett Floods occurred, and we were really amazed at how much water was still standing in the Park.

Chris said that the 2012 Plett Floods was worse than the 2007 Plett Floods for the Caravan Park.  On Saturday at around 13:00 it was obviously to Chris that the river would come down and the lagoon would flood over, the water kept rising and rising and at 15:00 Chris dropped the electrics.  15:30 the water came over the sand banks and for three hours the water just kept getting higher and higher.

Keurbooms Lagoon Caravan Park - Floods 2012

At the lowest lying areas the water was over a metre high and ¾ metre for the general area.  On Sunday the water dropped by 4 inches or so, but the vlei was to full to go anywhere and dropped a further inch on Monday morning, Chris needed help and phone the Plett Fire Station, to request help to pump the water out, George Lott and his team was there at 09:30 and pumped until 12:00, it made no difference.  Chris then decided he would need to dig out a trench and phoned DeRon, trench was built and started flowing water from 16:30 on Monday afternoon, today Wednesday the 18^th the water is still draining at a remarkable rate.

Chris says that the Park is fine otherwise, “no hassle” but for the grass, he needs to clear the water within the week, or the grass will die.  That section of the Caravan Park will not be used for 3 – 4 months.

Keurbooms Lagoon Caravan Park