As the country braces for freezing and wet weather conditions over the next few days, the Minister of the National Department of Human Settlements (NDHS) has appealed to residents in informal settlements to be extra careful when using cooking and heating devices.
The DHS Minister Thembi Simelane asked these residents to work with the department to prevent deadly and destructive fires in informal settlements.
“The resources we invest during emergencies could be used to accelerate upgrading of our informal settlements, thus providing decent and permanent shelter to the qualifying beneficiaries,” Simelane said.
The Emergency Housing Team from the department arrived in the City of Cape Town to work with local teams to assist households affected by a fire that destroyed about 50 structures on Saturday morning at Silvertown, Khayelitsha, leaving scores of people without shelter.
Last week, the South African Weather Service(SAWS) warned of a particularly intense Cut-Off low (COL) system, associated with severe and extreme winter weather, which would affect South Africa, persisting over the country until at least the middle of next week over the eastern provinces.
The meteorological service said that as of early Saturday morning, this system would begin affecting the Western and Northern Cape. It said by Monday and Tuesday, this extensive and severe winter weather system will have shifted further east over South Africa, affecting the central and eastern provinces.
SAWS said a significant and dramatic drop in daytime temperatures can be expected over all provinces, with the possible exception of Limpopo. Consequently, farmers of small livestock are strongly advised to implement appropriate measures to prevent stock losses due to exposure to bitter cold and wind.
Some of the more extreme weather impacts associated with this system include the following:
• Snowfalls over almost every province, with the exception of Limpopo. Some of these snowfalls would be disruptive, affecting traffic flow over mountain passes (for example, the N3 highway at Van Reenen’s pass on Monday and Tuesday).
• Strong, damaging surface winds over large parts of the interior provinces from Sunday, leading to an elevated risk of wildfires, especially over the central and eastern interior, ahead of the cold change. These extreme conditions are expected to persist over some of the eastern provinces until Wednesday.
• Strong to near-gale force coastal winds and very rough seas from Friday along the south-west coast, spreading to the south and east coasts during Saturday, and lasting until at least on Tuesday along the east coast.
• Heavy rainfall leading to localised flooding and infrastructure damage over parts of the Eastern Cape coast and adjacent interior on Sunday, shifting to southern KwaZulu-Natal on Monday.
• Bitterly cold daytime conditions over many provinces from Sunday, with maximum temperatures unlikely to exceed +10 C. These conditions will be exacerbated by strong, gusty winds.
There is also a risk of severe thunderstorms; possibly associated with damaging hail and/or damaging winds over some provinces, including North West, Gauteng, Mpumalanga and KwaZulu-Natal during Monday and Tuesday.
Simelane said every minute matters. “Please use Emergency Services contact numbers responsibly.
“Their abuse puts people’s lives at risk. Work with us to save lives and infrastructure.”
She has also directed a team responsible for emergency housing within the NDHS to expedite the process to assist recent victims, including Khayelitsha.
The department said there was a strong likelihood that affected qualifying households will be assisted with building materials to enable them to restore their structures. This is one of the four categories of emergency housing interventions provided by the department.
Meanwhile, NDHS said building material is expected to be delivered between this Tuesday and Wednesday to 57 families affected by a fire at Kennedy Road informal settlement in eThekwini.
Meanwhile, because insurance policies typically cover property on a replacement value basis, it is important for one to ensure that their home and its contents are insured for their current replacement costs of their insured property-rather than outdated valuations or the market value, says Ryno de Kock, Head of Distribution at PSG Insure.
De Kock said that failing to insure on the replacement value, will result in the property being underinsured. When assessing claims, he said the insurance company will use the ‘average condition’ to address underinsurance, which will mean that the policyholder becomes responsible for the difference between the replacement value and the underinsured value, with resultant financial losses.
The insurance company said it is advisable to take clear photographs of valuables, digitising receipts and warranties, and storing user manuals where possible. These records can be used as proof of ownership at claim stage, to assist insurers to better understand the items that needs to be replaced, it said.
“After all, your insurer doesn’t know the daily ins and outs of your household – making it your responsibility to provide the details that enable them to restore you to the position you were in before the claim occurred. Without this evidence, even a valid claim can be delayed or reduced,” De Kock said.
