Closure of lanes due to flooding near CT's Century City for safety, say authorities

CAPE TOWN - The closure of two sections of the N1 highway in the vicinity of Century City due to flooding has caused a headache for thousands of motorists over the past few days.
 
But Western Cape authorities said the lane closures that have been in effect on the N1 inbound and outbound were put in place with road users' safety top of mind.
 
The wetland or vlei in that vicinity has reached capacity, resulting in water spilling over onto the roadway.
 
This follows days of heavy rains that recently battered the Cape.
 
The Western Cape Department of Infrastructure's Jandré Bakker: "The stormwater system is designed to ensure that water moves from one side of the N1 to the other via a number of pipe culverts all along open drainage systems where it discharges near the Koeberg interchange. The system is running at full capacity, so it's not as simple as a blocked drain for instance."
 
Bakker said it was important to note that the road stormwater system was designed to deal with the road-related run-off and not for the additional pressure that the vlei would add.
 
"Over the past couple of years, it seems that the capacity of the vlei has reduced, which leads to it flooding into the road reserve and then draining via the road drainage system. While the system has been managing the additional pressure of the past couple of years, the system has been under significant pressure as this was not what it was designed for."
 
Bakker said it was not yet clear when the water would be cleared.

"While the system is designed to handle large water volumes from the roadway, the water volume is much higher than usual due to multiple weather incidents following on each other in an already saturated area. When on-site, you can physically already hear the water draining and the volume of water that needs to be drained is exceeding the capacity of the system."