Emergency repairs blamed as suburbs run dry

“Emergency repairs” have been blamed for water outages in some East London suburbs since yesterday.

According to Buffalo City Metro the water department was carrying out emergency repairs to the Umzonyana dam, which supplies raw water to the Umzonyana Treatment Works.

In a media alert yesterday morning BCM spokesman Thandy Matebese initially said consumers in high lying areas of Beacon Bay, Vincent, Gonubie and Amalinda were affected. At the time Matebese said the water supply was expected to return to normal yesterday evening.

However, by yesterday evening not only were the repairs still incomplete but more suburbs were affected.

A second media alert announced a new target.

“Emergency repairs at Umzonyana dam will take longer than anticipated.

“Water production is expected to resume at midnight or tomorrow morning,” said Matebese just before 5pm yesterday.

More suburbs were added to the list of areas affected by the outage.

They included suburbs from Dawn to Gonubie as well as West Bank, which started experiencing water interruptions in the afternoon.

Matebese said the system could take two to three days to recover after the repairs had been completed.

Chez Francois hair salon in Vincent Park was turning clients away from about noon yesterday as taps ran dry.

Receptionist Kim Johnston said at first their stylists had bought bottled water to wash their clients’ hair.

“We have got to the point where we are turning clients away,” she said.

“There was no warning, nothing.” — arethal@dispatch.co.za