Natures Valley Ratepayers Association – Floods update
A quick update on the impact of the heavy rains over the weekend.
The weather predictions for the past weekend (13, 14, 15 July) were very accurate and the rain started falling in Natures Valley and the surrounding areas on Friday night and continued virtually unabated for the whole of Saturday and much of Saturday night. By Sunday morning around 150 mm had fallen.
The result of similar heavy falls in the catchment area of the Groot River was that the river came down in heavy flood in a repeat of what occurred in November 2007. The river mouth was open at the time the flood waters arrived and as a result the channel was gouged out but the adjoining beach and the dune was not washed away and the river banks generally were not adversely affected. The normal flooding in the low spots of the village occurred where the streams were flowing strongly.
A large amount of tree trunks, branches and general forest debris has been deposited along the entire beach and the sea was a brown foamy mass. Fortunately the flooding did not coincide with a spring tide, which probably reduced in general the degree to which the lagoon backed up.
Sadly, significant damage was caused to the tarred road approaches to the bridge and a huge amount of logs and debris was deposited on the bridge. The new concrete approaches performed well and held in place without obvious damage. As a result the roadway was not significantly gouged out and all essential services crossing the bridge were basically undamaged and the water supply remained in place. The water treatment plant has apparently not suffered significant damage. The new tarred surfacing for about 50m on either side of the bridge have lifted and broken up, with big slabs of tarmac ending up in the adjoining forest. A few more large trees have come down in the adjoining forest. The campsite was underwater.
The east side of the pass has been closed as the Groot River bridge cannot be crossed. The Provincial Roads Dept were on site promptly on Monday 16th and have commenced clearing the debris and indications are that they will repair the road as soon as possible, probably on a temporary basis, to allow the pass to be opened as soon as possible.
The west side of the pass suffered some heavy rock slides which partially blocked the road. These blockages were cleared by the Roads Dept on Monday 16th.
More rain is predicted for the weekend of 21-22 July. We hold thumbs for NORMAL showers.
Regards,
Doug Blaine
NVRA Infrastructure Convenor.