THE DREADED CALL
Sunday 25 January 1981, just after 14h00, the phone rang in a tiny apartment on the Cape Flats. Incessant rain had been brought to Cape Town and the entire South Western Cape region by a fairly rare phenomenon: a Black South Easter. The elderly couple residing in the apartment were on their sofa after lunch, reading the various segments of the Sunday Times and the Afrikaans weekend newspaper, Rapport. Of intense interest to them were reports of severe flooding overwhelming parts of the Cape and there was a tinge of anxiety regarding the safety of their relatives in the Moordenaars Karoo area, particularly their son, daughter-in-law and grandchildren who worked and lived in the sleepy Karoo town of Laingsburg.
The couple had recently returned from a road trip that took them to several small towns in the Karoo where they had relatives. It was customary to stay with family when visiting up-country. In the early eighties the pace was a tad slower than it is in this day and age, so visitors made a point of looking up relatives on these sorts of road trips. For the kids it was a lovely experience to accommodate visiting grandparents who doted on them and spoilt them rotten with little gifts and sweets. Likewise, the grandparents experienced much joy in engaging with the little ones. Of course, upon their departure to the next port of call, they would be sent on their way with picnic baskets filled with “padkos”. Several rest stops along the way at the whitewashed concrete tables and seats provided at frequent intervals by the roads authorities for just that purpose, would deplete the supply of snacks and flasks of home-brewed coffee (sweetened with condensed milk, rather than ordinary cows’ milk).
Three days earlier, at the start of the weekend, there were hints of an approaching storm. The first few drops nudged drivers to switch on their intermittent windscreen wipers. A trifle later and a steady stream precipitated a flick of the switch to a slow steady wiper setting. At the beginning of what turned into a deluge, the fast setting could no longer cope with the amount of water being driven against the windscreens by gusty wind. Headlights and, where fitted, fog lights soon became necessary as darkness accompanied the pelting rain.
Usually a semi-desert region of South Africa, the occasional storm is welcomed by the largely sheep farming community. The normally desiccated soil has a capacity to soak up such a downpour. However, this time the Black South Easter brought something quite unusual to the catchment area of the Buffels river that runs through Laingsburg. Not in living memory was there anything to compare with the three days of sweeping rain. The Buffels river struggled to contain the precipitation in its own catchment area within the bounds of its high level zone. Compounding the mighty swell was the confluence of two other rivers that feed into the Buffels, namely the Wilgenhout and Baviaans. At eight o’clock on that Sunday morning, the folk in Laingsburg got the first inkling of trouble ahead. The Buffels River breached its banks. By the afternoon a wall of water was coursing through the town – ten metres above the normal flow level after heavy rain.
So sudden was the severity of this flood that it began to sweep away buildings that had stood for decades. Tossed about in the churning mass of water were the bodies of beast and man. Sheep and cattle made their way past the railway bridge and Boer War blockhouse, iconic structures in Laingsburg, as flotsam at sea. The main Voortrekker Street became a massive waterway. Swept in its wake, the Buffels tossed solidly constructed houses, an old age home and numerous commercial properties, with their contents – human and material – along its path as if they had simply been built by children who had been playing with Lego toys. The final tally of property destroyed in the town alone was in the region of 184 houses and 23 businesses. The old folk in the Old Age Home stood no chance of rescue. Their frail forms succumbed to the torrent with little resistance.
When the Cape Flats couple received the devastating news that their children and grandchildren were possibly victims of this freak event, the first rescuers were trickling into the outskirts of the town. Summoned in haste were reinforcements from the South African Police, their Diving Squad, and rapidly rounded up platoons (two of them) from Oudtshoorn’s Infantry School undergoing basic training in the Defence Force. Helicopters, rubber dinghies – anything that floats really – were ferried in to be used in the rescue effort. Simultaneous with the first responders, the bodies of those who were the first to drown began to reach the Floriskraal Dam wall some 20 kilometres away. It was a pitiful sight for witnesses who recalled glimpses of deceased people being hurled over the dam wall by the vicious, swirling river, much like rag dolls would be tossed about.
Into the muddy, saturated soil of the Moordenaars Karoo (Murderers’ Karoo) teams of soldiers, police and civilian rescuers began to slosh their way through the debris in search of survivors, and soon afterwards, simply the deceased. Of the final tally of 104 dead, only 32 bodies were ever recovered, some as far away as Mossel Bay. Two-hundred kilometers from Laingsburg, some of its residents washed out in the sea.
The old couple began their anxious wait for further news about their family on that Sunday afternoon. This was the first natural disaster of its magnitude that the fledgling television service in South Africa covered. Broadcasts were limited to the early evening at that stage – no 24 hour news channels at that time. Relying on the radio and landline telephone communication, the tension in that tiny apartment was palpable.
In the wee hours of Monday morning came a knock on the door and with it the dreaded news that their little family was indeed missing. The house in which the grandparents had just a few days before been accommodated had been swept away by this cascading deluge. Lost forever would be the material evidence of their having lived there. Theirs were bodies that were never recovered, so all that remained of them were memories.
Fond memories of loved ones is all that endures when all else is gone. The mark they made on the lives they touched is all that is left on this earth. The inscription on the memorial stone that lists their names is all that serves as a reminder that they once lived in Laingsburg.
This sudden destruction that befell ordinary folk just going about their lives is a stark reminder of the brevity of our sojourn here on earth. It is a reminder, too, to cherish memories and our bonds with people while we are able to share our lives with loved-ones.
Reference from which statistics have been lifted:
www.karoo-southafrica.com/koup/laingsburg/history-of-laingsburg
©Paul M Haupt
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