Water outages hampered firefighting during Simon’s Town fires

Simon’s Town residents say they were left without sufficient water to fight the recent Welcome Glen and Da Gama Park fires, despite paying the City of Cape Town for water services.

Community members took to social media, claiming the area had 'no water for approximately three to four days', leaving residents and firefighters struggling with low pressure and empty taps at a critical time.

Much of the confusion, residents say, stems from the area’s unusual water-supply arrangement.

Parts of Simon’s Town rely on infrastructure owned or managed by the South African Navy.

They say the law of supply during the fire raised questions about who is responsible when supply fails.

Simon Liell-Cock is the ward councillor for Simons Town and says there is no joint responsibility when it comes to water provision for the area.

He explains that Simons Town originally had its own independent water system drawing from various dams in the area, but as these dams ran dry, the Navy began struggling with supply.

In response, a pipeline was installed during the 1970s to connect Simons Town to the City of Cape Town' network.

Da Gama Park, he notes, was built by the Navy for Navy housing. "Their infrastructure is theirs."

When Welcome Glen was later developed, it was intended as an extension of Da Gama Park, meaning its supply lines, reservoirs and pump stations all run through Navy-built infrastructure.

Now that the City provideswater services to Welcome Glen, it has inherited what Liell-Cock calls 'relics of the past', which engineers are working to mitigate.

“Engineers have pumped water up Dido Valley Road to the reservoirs,” he says.

So what went wrong during last week’s fires? According to Liell-Cock, a contractor damaged the Dido Valley pump line, critically affecting the supply.

"It's a difficult situation," he admits.

To listen to Liell–Cock in conversation with CapeTalk's John Maytham, click below