Remembering the flood
I really enjoy reading Platteland magazine.
On page 83 of the Winter 2021 issue there’s a photo of stones in a tin with a pen and an invitation to write messages in remembrance of the 1981 Laingsburg flood.
My dad always loved a good road trip, and our annual 1981 family holiday was no exception. It was the end of March and I had just turned 9 years old. We had heard about the flood on the news some time before stopping in Laingsburg on our our next journey to Cape Town.
We got out of the car and stood on the dry, hard, mud-caked ground. Looking around, we could see the desolation, interspersed by the occasional pile of trapped debris that the flood had washed down. A tumbleweed rolled past in the wind. I thought to myself that tumbleweeds should only be in cowboy movies – this couldn’t be real!
As we looked up the hill, I saw the neat rows of white Parkhomes. My parents explained that all the houses had been destroyed, and that these homes were delivered so that people had a safe place to live until their real houses were rebuilt.
We went down to the temporary bridge that had been erected so that the N1 could continue its journey uninterrupted to Cape Town. There was a distinct, loud rumble coming from the bridge as vehicles drove over it. I touched the hand rail and could feel the harsh vibrations as cars passed. I noticed that some of the brackets fixing the hand
