The National Sea Rescue Institute (NSRI) borrowed a helicopter, a rubber duck and a tractor to complete two rescues and a mercy mission along the flooded coast on Friday.
NSRI Plettenberg Bay station commander Ray Farnham’s team was called at 7am on Friday to help with relief operations in the De Vlug area — where 30 families on farms, stranded by floods, required relief supplies, said NSRI spokesperson Craig Lambinon.
”An Oryx helicopter was preparing to be dispatched from Cape Town by the South African Air Force when Fanie Jordaan of Pezula Private Estate volunteered his EC-120 helicopter to carry out the operation.”
On Thursday night, four people were rescued when their vehicle was swept away by flood waters in Port Elizabeth.
Port Elizabeth station commander Ian Gray reported that the vehicle carrying a family of four was swept off a flooded road near Seaview. The family was rescued from bushes in a heavily flooded area. The NSRI launched an NSRI crewman’s private rubber duck.
”All four persons were rescued and taken to hospital by ambulance in stable condition,” said Lambinon. ”Another vehicle also left the road in the same place where floods swamped the road shortly after the first accident, but the single occupant managed to swim safely to a bank and was not injured.”
Lambinon said the NSRI had to use its member’s own rubber duck as the NSRI’s own rigid inflatable was for sea conditions. The organisation had been trying to raise the R160 000 needed to buy its own rubber duck for this type of operation.
At St Francis Bay, NSRI station commander Bob Meikle said rescuers monitored the rising water levels throughout the night and on Friday morning.
No major incidents were reported other than some houses that had been swamped by mud.
”Bob had to be pulled from thick mud after he began sinking into it while helping a lady from her home. A tractor was used to pull him free from sinking deeper into the mud after it had already reached up to his chest,” said Lambinon.
He said all NSRI stations were still on full alert to assist.
Less rain was recorded in the flooded southern Cape and Eastern Cape coastal areas over the past 24 hours, according to South African Weather Service records.
All coastal weather stations from Mossel Bay to Mthatha recorded lower rainfall for the 24 hours to 8am on Friday than for the previous day.
For the 24 hours to 8am on Friday, Weather SA recorded 64,4mm at Port Elizabeth, compared with 129,6mm at 8am on Thursday, and 52mm at Lorraine in Port Elizabeth (185mm on Thursday).
Lesotho rescue
Meanwhile, one of 14 people rescued from the Thaba ‘Tseka mountains in Lesotho has been airlifted to hospital in a critical condition, the South African high commission in Lesotho said on Friday.
”He was found in a very bad condition … had the rescue team arrived an hour later, he might have lost his life,” spokesperson Jerome Barnes said.
The man, who works as a correctional officer in Lesotho, and 13 others were trapped following snowfalls in the area. They all had to endure three freezing nights in their cars.
But two of them, South Africans Shadrack Mosoeu, of the health department at Virginia in the Free State, and Moses Dlamini, a truck driver for P&J Botha Transport at Meyerton in Gauteng, used their cellphones to call for help.
They kept in touch with the high commission and this helped in locating them.
Although poor visibility hindered a search by the South African National Defence Force and the Lesotho Air Force, the stranded group of travellers was located and taken to safety later on Friday morning.
”A medical team which formed part of the rescuers attended to everyone and only the correctional officer was found to be in a bad shape,” Barnes said.
He said two other South Africans, Tony Ferreira and Gerald Conlon, were still trapped in the Bokong lodge in the Katse Dam area. ”They are safe … they do not need evacuation and will only leave the area when the weather permits.”
Barnes said the search was continuing as more people could still be trapped in the mountains. ”I am still waiting for a full report on those rescued … the number could go up.” — Sapa