The Long Road to Recovery
Is it really Saturday night...and Easter weekend too?
What an absolutely crazy week this has been; I would never in my wildest dreams have thought the rain that started last weekend, would end up so catastrophic and become what is now known as Cyclone ISSA!
Our lives have only revolved around the damage caused by that cyclone, and we've heard more and more sad stories of people being buried alive under the mud; absolutely horrific!
The residents at the end of our road are still cut off as the section where the mudslide came down caused a collapse in our dead-end road.
Miracles do happen, the roads department came out to grade the road and remove the soil; it was quite unbelievable just how much soil came down just looking at the road, never mind how much bulldozed the home below the road!
The workers are overwhelmed by what they've seen; their supervisor told me how they found a young child buried under the mud, but also told a story of how he heard of how a mother and baby were saved by a bed falling over them, actually protecting them from the mud!
They will be back tomorrow to hopefully complete and open the one lane so cars can pass through.
The number of services that's been affected is enormous; roads, stormwater, electricity, water & sanitation, internet fibre network, and many more.
The damage caused on the roads and bridges has made a huge impact on many services, so a number of essentials are hard to come by; things like deliveries of fuel, food, and medicine, as routing is taking much longer!
We have an abundance of water all around, but many areas' taps have run dry as the intense rain caused the bursting of many old water pipes. We have offered water from our Jojo tanks to friends as it can at least be used for bucket baths, flushing the loo, doing the washing, etc, but some live too far, and with limited fuel, this is not an option.
You can imagine that people's tolerance levels are not good at all as I've experienced on our neighbourhood group chat. Voicing an opinion that some mudslides could have been prevented if the correct engineering standards were used, caused an uproar! But, many people will still continue doing their own thing by building retaining walls without a good foundation, subsoil drainage, and steel reinforcing; then they wonder why it collapses in heavy rain!
I'll keep my mouth shut in the future as some people do not want to admit that they took shortcuts!
Mix water and soil together and you have a powerful force! Enough to cause massive destruction as we saw this past week!
The image on the right of the origin of the landslide was taken the day after, and the other one was after the soil had dried out a bit.
The biggest miracle happened today though; when I told you of Finding Hidden Treasures yesterday, you'll know that the search among the debris was started to find a set of car keys which also had the gear lock key on it. To replace that, the locksmith said the only way was to cut the gear lock off and buy a new one, which would have been very costly!
Hubby was so excited, it was like finding gold, and he could not wait to wash it and see if it still works, but as it's not an electronic key, it of course worked!
Car keys, aircon remote...but no aircon, and cellphone charger.
Is it time for us Silvers to move to that little house by the sea, as these kind of disasters are taking their toll?
This is day 16...yay, past the halfway mark...of my attempt at #Hiveblopomo, an initiative of the awesome bizzy Queen Bee @traciyork, encouraging all Hivers to write a blog a day for the month of April.
It's been a bit of a struggle the past few days, but so far, so good, hope I reach Day 30!
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I have been following on the various media and it’s all quite shocking. I hope you have everything you need to get by for the moment. I shared a very sad post on my FB of 2 brothers who have lost their 10 year old sister, their mom and their Gran as well as their house and all belongings. So very sad… sending love from the Cape. Xoxo
Hi @zo3d, the tragedies we're hearing about are just awful. That young girl went to my brother's old school. There are many bodies still under the mud in the townships so I can just imagine the trauma they're going through!
But the noise when that mudslide started from the school bank in front of the second house from us, will stay embedded in our minds forever! Hearing the screams was terrifying as we thought they were trapped; it's only God's grace that saved them, as it took seconds for that wall of mud to hit their home and bulldoze right through it!
They say we can expect more of these natural disasters due to climate change!
I do believe that many municipalities are not following proper engineering principles nor keeping a check on building operations like they used to!
Thank you for your kind message, stay safe in the Cape 💞
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It is scary and sad when nature brings out its wrath. People getting buried alive is horrific and the memory cannot be forgotten. I hope the roads will get cleared out soon so basic necessities can be easily accessible. Keep safe🙏 and moving to the house by the sea sounds really good🌞
I was just looking at footage of some of the freeways, it's just unbelievable and one can understand why they have to take alternative routes which take much longer. This all has a ripple effect with costs increasing all the time!
That is true, it affects everything and with the price of petrol already high, the prices of necessities have gone up too, then there's the travel time adding more to the cost. I hope that the freeways get cleared out soon...
Oh my! I am so sorry to see this! Mudslides are terribly dangerous and powerful. It is amazing the damage they can do. It is sad. We had the bands of a hurricane pass over Panama two years ago and cause major flooding, mudslides, etc. People are still trying to rebuild their lives.
I'm sure you must have lived through some perilous weather as well, living where you do! It's going to take years to rebuild and will have a huge effect on our economy!
It is so sad.
Thankfully Panama is situated as such that it has never received a direct hit from a hurricane, but we've had the bands sit on top of us. Other than that, just a lot of rain in rainy season, but I kind of like it usually!
Oh, my goodness @lizelle how awful. after reading your post yesterday, I have been reading about the awful weather and mudslides in SA. I am so sorry for your hardship, life has not been easy for you that's for sure.
Wishing you all the best, and yes, it may be time to head to that nice little place by the sea.
You and yours are in my thoughts and prayers, stay strong.
Thank you dear @farm-mom, it's been absolutely horrendous but we are thankful that we and our family & friends are safe, others have not been as fortunate!
We're actually re-thinking that little house by the sea as we've been reading that there's going to be more of these subtropical cyclones along the coastal areas, because of global warming, so maybe it's time to move inland, closer to our kids, we can always go for holidays at the sea.
We'll see what the future holds!
Thank you for caring ❤
oh woah....s o challenging!!
yes water and soil... scary enough. Just got through the Brisbane floods last month. 13m deep. water is scary. and 100% necessary all in one go.
stay safe
This really is beyond comprehension, Lizelle. Cyclone Damoina pales into insignificance. I keep on being grateful that - relatively speaking - you're coming through this with flying colours. I cannot imagine what you and so many folk are going through.
Thank you for your updates and so glad those keys turned up!
We count ourselves as very fortunate as more and more stories are coming out, the devastation really is beyond belief! People being buried in mudslides, part of the N2 freeway on the South Coast has collapsed, bridges damaged, the list goes on and on!
Finding those keys was like finding a needle in a haystack, and that the cellphone and rechargeable lamp we found the day before, still works, is just amazing! Those items must have been protected by smashed furniture.
We are just thankful that none of our friends and family lost their lives💞
I am glad that you and your family are safe during the cyclone. Natural disasters are becoming more common nowadays. Perhaps mankind has done too much damage to Mother Nature.