SCHOEMANSDAL – A house owner of the community had to replace broken windows on Sunday as a result of Saturday evening’s violent hail storm which lasted less than 10 minutes.
This area was among the most affected by the storm, however, other areas such as Driekoppies, were not spared by the golf-ball-sized hail. No fatalities have been reported.
Houses at Jeppe’s Reef were badly damaged, and a bridge was washed away.
The unexpected hail brought traffic to a halt with zero visibility and motorists flocked to the nearest tree to get their vehicles out of harms way.
Ms Elizabeth Shongwe of Jeppe’s Reef said she got the fright of her life, “When I heard the window break, I thought a tree was falling onto my house. I saw the hail shooting in. We were ducking and diving to avoid the ice blocks and tried to close the broken windows with sheets.”
Schoemansdal Build It store manager, Mr Sajid Patel, told this newspaper that despite this being a disaster for community members, business went very well.
He said, “It is very unfortunate that so many houses have been damaged, but since we opened our doors for business today (Sunday) many clients have been buying new windows.”
Despite the fact that there will be no assistance from the municipality, councillors visited the affected households on Monday and Tuesday.
Mr Cyril Ripinga told Corridor Gazette the municipality would not assist households to repair windows, however, the mayor would visit some of the affected households.
“There have been no deaths as result of the weekend’s hail storm, however, over a 100 houses’ have been damaged.”
Ripinga reiterated the municipality’s caution to parents and road users, “Once again we would like to request parents to tell their children to refrain from swimming in dams and rivers. At the moment the weather is very deceiving as it opens up and is hot for some hours and closes up immediately followed by heavy rain. Drivers should be cautious of using low bridges during rain and poor visibility.”
The South African Weather Services are predicting that rain is expected to last until Sunday in the Nkomazi region, and warns that hailstorms might occur.
