GEORGE NEWS - The heavy lightning storm experienced on Sunday afternoon in George and environs caused widespread damage to the municipal electrical network as well as to the Telkom lines in town.
George Municipality had its hands full doing electrical repairs as well as providing emergency relief help to informal housing residents whose roofs were leaking due to storm damage.
Lightning
Kobus Wilken, acting director of Electrotechnical Services, reported that lightning had damaged a pole structure on the 66kV power line between Langenhoven Street and the Substation George. Two transformers that were damaged in Wilderness Heights and Hoekwil areas were replaced. A damaged cable fault was repaired in Denneoord as well as damaged power lines in Norgarivier, De Rust and Tarentaalbos.
In Fernridge, two electrical poles were struck by lightning and were replaced, and cable faults were repaired in Mission, Poplar and Kerk streets in Pacaltsdorp.
Some streetlights fused due to the lightning. On Tuesday the George Municipality's electrical technicians checked streetlights throughout town and replaced them where necessary.
In the suburb of Eden, residents jumped out of their skins as lightning struck in the vicinity of Bokmakierie Street and Kersoog Street, resulting in damage to Telkom landlines and ADLS lines. Telkom reported that the severe electrical storm in George and surrounds affected Telkom's infrastructure, disrupting services in the area.
Upon investigation they found that the related faults were sporadic. No major outage was reported. "Telkom technicians have already been deployed to resolve the faults and services will be restored as soon as possible," said a Telkom spokesperson.
Fixing roofsDirector of Community Services Walter Hendricks said, "Because of the heavy rains in George over the weekend a number of informal structures' roofs started leaking and our Human Settlements Directorate had to provide families with Micron plastic (gunplast) to repair their roofs. Micron plastic was provided for a total of 366 structures throughout the informal areas of George including Ballotsview, Parkdene, Conville, Borcherds, Syferfontein, Rosedale, Thembalethu, Rosemoor, Touwsranten, Blanco, Maraiskamp and Pacaltsdorp. In Parkdene a family was provided with an emergency housing structure and another with a new roof after homes were flooded."
He also confirmed that his directorate had to remove loose branches due to the heavy weather conditions.
Thank-you
Wilken thanked the public for their patience and requested them to report any problems to the Electrotechnical Directorate on 044 801 9222 / 044 803 9222. You may also log your complaint via the George Municipal app at http://george.comunity.me.
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