RRRA Newsletter
UPDATE ON THE WATER SITUATION IN RAMSGATE Ramsgate was amongst the worst hit areas during the recent water outage on the Lower South Coast. Unfortunately Ramsgate lies at the end of the main supply line from the Umzimkulu River and is therefore the first to lose water during regional outages and amongst the last to be restored. Ramsgate South was particularly badly hit receiving no water from the last week in May until the last week in June. Ramsgate North which is fed from a different reservoir had some supply some of the time. Much of the infrastructure is old and fragile. Our understanding is some of the worst pipes are to be replaced but as yet there is no time line from UGU. As in the past damage was caused to the infrastructure during the work stoppage and this delayed the restoration significantly. Several repairs undertaken during the strike were damaged again within 24 hours. As many will know, the RRRA sprang into action on the first day and static tanks were placed at the BP Service Station, Pistols and in Greenhills. These were filled regularly throughout the whole period by volunteers using their own vehicles. Ray Basson and Steve Thomas worked 12 hours a day, seven days a week, to ensure residents had access to water. An RRRA mobile tank service also delivered water to housebound residents. Since then, the RRRA sub-committee which focuses on water crises, has been analyzing the lessons learnt from the recent outages and re-evaluating all possibilities to manage these events more effectively in the future. The RRRA has now adopted the proposals of this group and will be funding the additional equipment costs. In future as soon as there is a prolonged outage, at least five static tanks will be placed at... read more