Communities come together in wake of record-breaking storm last week
With trees and infrastructure battered by the thunderstorm, neighbours came together to help pick up the pieces, literally.
Last week’s storm wreaked havoc with localised flooding, trees being ripped from the ground or branches snapping free from their trunks in decades-old, sturdy trees.
What was not damaged by falling timer or infrastructure was damaged by the golf-ball-size hail stones that smashed to the earth during the thunderstorm.
A silver lining to an otherwise dark cloud was how community members banded together to help each other clear the streets, chop fallen trees and report unsafe, downed power lines and other faults following the storm.
Christi Clare lives in Fairland and shared a photograph with neighbours and community members who took to the streets to remove fallen trees lying across streets in the suburb. She said, “Community members who live streets away from the problem arrived to lend a helping hand, who phoned family who then travelled from far to help. It is moments like this that give me hope for our nation – for us as South Africans. Today showed me the true meaning of Ubuntu – I am because of who we all are!”
Ane Venter is pictured standing on her 20m-high pecan nut tree that had been ripped from the ground, taking power lines with it showing the sheer force of the weather system.
Stephen Laverack has been measuring rainfall on Kessel Close in Fairland and recorded rainfall of 62mm of rain/hail from the storm.
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