“We have been told that the rain is going to continue until tomorrow,” said the Francistown district development officer, Gobe Macha, yesterday.
The head of the Francistown Meteorology office, Masego Nkepu, told Mmegi that the rainfall was expected to continue the whole of yesterday but it might relent today. “This week, we did not expect rains of this magnitude. We were expecting normal to below normal rainfall during the months of October, November and December,” she said. She explained that there is heavy rainfall in the eastern half of Botswana. “Normally, in December, the pattern shows the average rainfall of 89mm cumulatively in Francistown. In my view, it is a combination of deep surface trough and easterly and westerly upper air trough and a mixture of Tropical and Indian moisture that precipitated the heavy falls”. Nkepu reported that about 29 houses were made inhabitable by yesterday and the affected occupants were accommodated at various primary schools in the city. Some houses had collapsed while others were in precarious conditions. The floods drove people out of their houses.
The major roads of Bluejacket, Matsiloje and Marang were over-flooded. Those who normally walk to work were stranded because of the floods. Most people reported late for work as they were either busy draining water from their houses or they could not drive through the floods.
Kediabetswe Kereeditse, a resident of Block-One woke up to find part of her servant’s quarters had collapsed. “Everything was soaked in water in the quarters. It was difficult to leave the main house as the whole area around it was soaked,” she said. The storm water drainage in front of her yard, which was constructed early this year by the council, only exacerbated the situation. “All this water that you see in my yard comes from this trench,” she declared, pointing at the storm water drainage.
Her neighbour, Jimmy Sethomo, was worried that if they were not assisted in draining the water, they were likely to be in trouble at night as it continued raining.
Abigail Thekiso, a manager at the Marang Service Station explained that water found its way into their Select shop and some of their goods were affected as a result. She said that they lost business because the station was not accessible for about four hours. “The whole filling station area was flooded with water from 6am and attendants and customers could not access it.”
