Die vloed van 1941, een van die ergstes op rekord

6 April 1941 · regional · Beaufort West

A cloudburst of more than 152 mm fell 22,5 km north-west of the town. Flood water reached 1,2 m at street level; hotels, homes and businesses were inundated and the town centre evacuated. TWO MEN DROWNED. The Weeber Bridge over the Gamka was badly damaged and four kilometres of the water pipeline washed away. Damage was put at about GBP100 000. The town was lucky in one respect: the Springfontein Dam was nearly dry beforehand and absorbed much of the force. These are BEAUFORT WEST's records, about 91 km from the centre of the ground this project maps, and the article makes no statement about Klaarstroom or the Koup farms. What makes them worth having is that they are the same rainfall regime and the nearest place where somebody wrote the weather down year by year. Read as regional context, not as a record of what fell on these farms. [SRC-262]

Bronne

• Wessel Visser, "Between drought and deluge: A history of water provision to Beaufort West, ca. 1858-1955", pp. 1-21 pp. 1-21; supplied as the PDF 31-61-1-SM.pdf