[WATCH] Under the weather: City mops up flooded Cape suburbs

Areas all over the Kaap experienced intense flooding as the heavens opened up for three days in a row, leaving many residents under water an out in the cold.

Since the heavy rains started falling on Sunday night, the City’s disaster management responded to places such as Bishop Lavis, Ottery, Mfuleni, Philippi, Delft, Ravensmead, Khayelitsha and Maitland where water stood knee-deep in certain areas.

Many mense could not go to work or school as they were trapped in their homes.

Some residents in Bishop Lavis decided to make the most of the flooded streets and videos of people floating in inflatable boats and even swimming went viral.

Mercifully, SA Weather Services spokesperson Surprise Mhlongo said the rain is expected to subside by today.

In Freedom Park informal settlement in Ottery, hartseer resident Susan Hansen said her home has been flooded since the rain started on Monday with water pouring through her door and roof.

Susan says she’s been living in a temporary hokkie provided by the City since last week while new houses are being built in the area, but says since day one there’s been issues.

“My electricity has been off since last Thursday when I moved in here and now the rain is coming in from everywhere,” she says.

“In my room, it is coming from the dak and in the rest of the house it is coming from the floor.

“The engineers from the City were here but they’re still looking to see how they can fix it.”

In Maitland, at an informal settlement off Royal Road, residents say their shacks are floating on water while ward 56 councillor, Helen Jacobs, says they are looking at ways of helping the community.

“The problem we have is that the rain runs downhill so every informal settlement in the area suffers from heavy flooding because they are all situated in the catchment areas.”

Meanwhile, the underground parking at the Sanctuary Mall in Somerset West was flooded as water from the nearby pond and the street flooded it on Monday evening.

The City of Cape Town’s disaster management department said they were providing relief to the affected areas while in Freedom Park, a Parkwood NGO assisted by providing warm meals.

Cape Town mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis said: “Every one of our teams is out on the road dealing with localised flooding issues. Some 110 teams are on the road and are working around the clock to clear the blockages.

“I call on the public to please report any incidents to our call centre or log the requests online so we can route these as quickly as possible to the response teams.”

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• Mop up operations underway as heavy rains lash the Cape