It’s one thing to read about natural disasters in the media and quite another to experience them first hand. Last weekend the Western Cape definitely lived up to its centuries-long reputation as the Cape of Storms as it was hit by one almighty storm!

This resulted in flooding in the Strand/Somerset West area and the closure of the R44, the road from Betty’s Bay to Gordon’s Bay as seen in the pic, which was closed due to parts of the road being washed away. This has necessitated going over Sir Lowry’s Pass which has added kilometers to the journey to Cape Town. Although inconvenient, this situation is not life-threatening. It does, however, bring home how vulnerable we are to vagaries of weather and other natural phenomena such as the recent Cyclone Cleopatra which has devastated parts of Sardinia. With the effects of climate change speeding up we can expect to experience more catastrophic weather extremes as the global weather machine adjusts to new boundary conditions …