Ferndale Ridge residents help each other in difficult times
Humanity was shown by residents of Ferndale Ridge during the water outage crisis.
Residents of Ferndale Ridge came together in a great show of community spirit during the recent water outage experienced in Randburg.
After the initial water outage due to lightning at the Eikenhof pumping station, residents of Ferndale and many other suburbs were left without water day after day despite being promised the system was recovering.
When noticing this problem, four residents in the area (who wish to remain anonymous) put out messages on the area Telegram group to offer borehole water to others who didn’t have it.
To make it easy for others, hosepipes were left outside on pavements so that others could come past when convenient for them and just fill up their containers.
One of the residents even offered fully filtered drinkable water from their off-grid filtration system while others offered regular borehole water for use.
Pierre van Wyk, head of the Ferndale Ridge Residents Group explained that the borehole water in the area is quite good quality if a bit acidic (so not good for metal pipes). Some residents including himself are quite happy to drink the water untreated, however, people should always decide for themselves and maybe rather boil the water first.
“It is very heartwarming to find that a community can come together to help each other out in times of such a crisis – in particular when the government and state entities took so long to address the matter. People’s lives are at risk when there is no water. It becomes a hygiene issue as people can’t flush toilets or wash hands, which could lead to a serious health crisis.”
He added that what was extremely disappointing was the lack of urgency shown by the mayor of Johannesburg and also by Joburg Water and Rand Water – especially when we found out that it was all because a valve was closed.
“We will view this as a good lesson in community support and steadfastness, and I thank the residents involved for being so generous.”
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