A cold front that brought heavy overnight rain to Cape Town has not resulted in significant flooding says a City official, but traffic has been heavy on the roads.
“It’s just been a normal winter rainfall for the city. There’s no flooding at this stage,” Charlotte Powell, spokesperson for the City’s disaster risk management centre told News24.
The centre has been conducting preparatory exercises ahead of the winter rainy season in an effort to mitigate possible disasters.
A strong cold front south of Cape Town is driving high winds and rain into the city, but Powell said that so far, the city has been spared flooding, though significant rain has fallen.
“Our winter is our rainfall period and we will experience rain, but it’s not to say we’ll get flooding.”
Wet roads, crashes
The South African Weather Service predicted localised flooding in Cape Town, with thundershowers in the Cape Winelands and Overberg.
The rain is expected to abate by Wednesday morning, though temperatures will remain in the mid-teens.
Cape Town traffic is predictably slow, with reports of a crash on the N1 inbound past the R300 intersection. The N2 and M5 inbound are also slow-moving with crashes reported near Jakes Gerwel Drive (M7) and Athlone respectively.
The ongoing bus strike is also still having an impact with heavy traffic from the Milnerton area via the R27 to Cape Town.
While Twitter users complained about the slow traffic, the City of Cape Town tweeted that motorists could call 0860 765 423 or 021 596 1999 to report bad drivers or to request assistance.
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