Water, Water, Everywhere . . .

Part 1:

So, I'm sitting at my desk on a cloudy day, and hear a 'WHOOMPH' from outside.  Being the nosy concerned neighbour that I am, I go and investigate . ..

The road is flooded . . .

 . . .with water streaming out of my neighbour's gate.

I see that the wall of the neighbour behind him has collapsed from the pressure of water

And so, being the nosy concerned neighbour that I am, I go and investigate . .

One road up, the situation is much the same, so I wade on up to the N2.

Aha! A burst water main.  The now defunct orange temporary fencing tells me that this is not the first time there has been a problem here.

I follow the trail of the water along a row of oh-so-glamorous Vibracrete

 

 

 

The water had only one small hole through which to escape - down someone's driveway, over the road, and into my neighbour's neighbour's yard, where it was stopped by a wall.  The water level rose to about 1 metre before the wall collapsed.  Apparently the whole house was flooded, and all the carpeting and furniture needs to be replaced.  

This hadeda thinks the flooding from the overflowing sewer is quite fun

Excitement over.  Time to go home for a cup of coffee. Great idea, except that there's no water to fill the kettle.  Good thing we have a water tank.

Part 2:

You may have noticed the orange temporary fencing in the first picture.  It's been there since October last year, when the Municipality decided to lay new sewage pipes.  They  laid the pipes, erected the safety fencing, then went away to do something else. Here are the before and after pics:

Then. A neat verge to park and put out your rubbish. 

Now.  No verge, piles of soil, orange temporary fencing and a missing tree.

Back to the flood:  All that water had to go somewhere. Much of it went into the trenches left by the municipality.

All the sewage pipes got filled up with the flood water.  And mud.  The sound effects were quite delightful.

 But wait, there's more:  The flood shifted the orange fences, and the inevitable happened:

This white bakkie was stuck in this trench for over an hour, until another white bakkie came along to pull him out.