The streets of Stellenbosch are strewn with solar panels and gutters after a storm, the likes of which residents say they have never experienced, all through Saturday night.
Right: a giant strawberry toppled on the road between Stellenbosch and Somerset West
“I couldn’t sleep,” recounts a Stellenbosch-based fruit exporter. She calls the storm a traumatic experience. “The wind sounded like an aeroplane flowing low overhead, coming blasts, rumbling all through the night and into the morning.”
Another recounts that his whole house shook on its foundation, while the new Horti Demo Centre at the University of Stellenbosch reports damage to some of its panels. It was very scary, Stellenbosch residents agree and today some streets in Stellenbosch are closed as centuries-old oak trees succumbed.
The port of Cape Town has been closed since Thursday; it can’t operate when the wind speed exceeds 80 km/h and there is more wind on the way, so the full extent of delays is not yet apparent. Within the port precinct a tally will have to be made of the impact of the winds to stacked containers.
“It is expected that operations will be on and off for the time being, as allowed by the wind,” says Chris Knoetze, managing director of Link Supply Chain Management.
This is a period of transition in the Western Cape: grapes are done, while stonefruit, pomegranates and topfruit are almost there. The citrus harvest is just ratcheting up.
There are reports of late plums blown off and some damage to citrus orchards around Paarl are coming in as residents of towns like Stellenbosch and Somerset West count the cost of the winds that kept them awake all through Saturday night.
Ceres apple growers count themselves lucky
Despite fallen apples – Grannies and Pink Ladies mostly, the brunt of the storm didn’t reach Ceres.
“We are currently doing a damage assessment, but at the moment it seems as if our production areas weren’t hit as hard as the Helderberg and Stellenbosch areas. We will have more information in the next few days,” says Roelf Pienaar, managing director of Tru-Cape Fruit Marketing.
Technical advisor to another apple producer in the Ceres area says: “We’re actually very lucky. The storm went past behind the mountains Gouda, Wellington, Paarl Stellenbosch way. We had some rain – around 10mm in town, 30mm in the Witzenberg, but we emerged mostly unscathed. We’re very grateful.”
He notes that he has similarly heard that Grabouw wasn’t affected by the gale force winds.
