Some schools were forced to close early today, April 22, and an animal welfare organisation has appealed for assistance as many parts of the south peninsula have been left without water since yesterday afternoon.

The water outage resulted from the vandalism of an air valve at a bulk reticulation water main on Blackbird Avenue in Parkwood. The City of Cape Town’s water and sanitation department had to shut down the water supply and flush out the water pipe network to conduct the emergency maintenance work on Sunday, leaving many households, businesses, and organisations without water from about 5pm.

The City said the water outage impacted a significant portion of the southern areas of the city including Pelican Park, Grassy Park, Retreat, Steenberg, Southfield, Diep River, the greater Lavender Hill area and as far as Westlake and Muizenberg.

A team from the department was sent to the site to assess the extent of the damage and tankers were sent out to provide water to communities.

The Cape of Good Hope SPCA, which houses 500 animals, including dogs, horses, cats, and other farm animals at their base in Grassy Park, appealed for water donations.

Schools in the broader Retreat area dismissed pupils from noon on Monday owing to the water disruption.

One of the principals in the Retreat area who spoke to the Southern Mail anonymously, said it was an emergency and needed urgent intervention.

“We could not in good conscience keep the children at the school because they need to go to the bathroom and they need to drink water so we sent out notifications to parents and dismissed our learners earlier.

The principal said schools were placed in a severe predicament because of the water crisis and “deviated from the normal school day”.

Other schools in Grassy Park cancelled extra classes and curricular activities. Grassdale High School principal Dawood Tregonning said the water crisis created an unhealthy situation and has fuelled a lot of uncertainty.

“Let us hope the crisis can be attended to, to bring about normality,” said Mr Tregonning.

This is not the first time the pipe was repaired, in November of 2022 the same water disruptions were experienced after vandalism of the pipe, which is part of a vital network that supplies southern areas. The repair was done and water was restored a day after the initial disruptions.

Repairs were done at the pipe in 2022 which also led to water disruptions.

Parkwood resident Robert Visagie said the situation is dire because many people didn’t have an opportunity to store water before the announcement was made about the shutdown.

“I’m not sure if the notice didn’t go out in time but many people didn’t get an opportunity to put water aside as advised by the City so many people are struggling, can’t flush their toilets, don’t have water to cook and do the necessary.

People don’t have drinking water and surely can’t afford to buy bottled water, said Mr Visagie.

He also questioned why the water pipe was so easily assessable.

“An important pipe like the one in Blackbird Avenue shouldn’t be exposed, it should be underground but now we have to suffer the consequences of ‘skirkies’ looking for a few rands for their next fix and of the City’s bad planning and poor infrastructure.

“The sad part is it happened before and it will probably happen again. Nothing is being done to fix the problem because they want quick fixes instead of fixing it properly.”

Mark Nicholson, who runs a feeding scheme in Lavender Hill, said he had to go out of Lavender Hill to collect water and also had to buy water to continue operations.

“It’s a bit tough because no one can go without water for so long. Some people didn’t get the notification about the shutdown, which threw people off.”

He said there are a few water tankers stationed in the area but there were long lines because of the need.

Work on the pipe is expected to continue throughout Monday night and the process to fill the pipeline is expected to be completed on Tuesday morning. A new pipe section and flanges will be installed.

In a broadcast message on Monday afternoon, Parkwood ward councillor Donovan Nelson said a new pipe had arrived to replace the old one and teams were working around the clock to ensure the completion of repairs.

He asked for patience while the department addressed the issue.

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Water outage leaves communities dry