GEORGE NEWS - Officials of the George municipality had an extremely busy weekend. This was mainly because of bad and extreme weather conditions and fires. At least 14 structures caught fire and one formal structure sustained heat damage.
"The municipality was inundated with calls to assist with incidents of power outages, houses burning and more, due to the heavy weather and lightning experienced over the past weekend," said communications officer Debra Sauer in reply to questions from the George Herald.
The electrotechnical directorate attended to three damaged transformers, two damaged disc insulators and one loose jumper in Hansmoeskraal. Further damage included a disc insulator in Wilderness Heights (Erica line), a broken overhead line in Saasveld, one high voltage pole that had fallen over in Uniondale with a high voltage cable strapped to it, as well as three broken poles in a low voltage line in Heatherlands.
Numerous drop-out fuses blew in various areas in greater George and from past experience the department expects possible latent transformer failures as a result of the initial lightning damage.
Civil Engineering services reported no damage to municipal streets or storm water infrastructure, although a number of blockages in storm water drains were cleared in different areas. The drains were immediately opened over the weekend and civils staff continued with the cleaning up on Monday. George Fire Brigade dealt with a number of veld fires on Friday and Saturday as well as the following structural fires:
Friday 1 February: In Zone 9, Thembalethu, an RDP structure was reported on fire.
Sunday 3 February: In Zone 9, Thembalethu, four informal structures burned down completely and three were damaged, including the municipal electrical line that runs through Zone 9.
In Beer Street, Rosemoor, one informal structure was also destroyed and one formal building sustained heat damage to the walls, doors and roof, as well as smoke damage.
In Palgrave Street, George South, a formal building was completely destroyed. Three informal structures were completely destryed in Zone 3, Thembalethu. In Tulip Street, Pacaltsdorp, wooden doors stored on the roof of a garage caught fire with no major damage to the building.
According to Sauer no injuries were reported in any of the structural fires and at present the causes are unknown. The housing section provided micron plastic (gunplast), mattresses and food to families in Blanco, Thembalethu and other areas after their homes suffered water and structural damages over the weekend.
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