Cape Town (South Africa) - "Day Zero" looms for water!

By Day Zero most of us understand that the taps will run dry.
No more water, no more sanitation ... oh what a nightmare!

Our winter rainfall season is over, our dams remain critically low, and despite repeated past warnings our politicians have made no provisions.

We are staring a very serious crisis in the face.

www.capetalk.co.za...

If you're gonna crap yourself do it now, while we can still flush!

o my! forgive my ignorance.. I had no idea this was happening. So.. NO plan has been put into place?
Apologies.. Im very tired and dont know what questions to ask. Can you tell us a but more about it?

Chilling photos of Cape Town's dams.
www.jacarandafm.com...

I read a while back that some of the biggest fresh water reserves in the world were in Africa. Can't they drill some wells into that and pipe it to the cities or haul it in tanker trucks?

a reply to: Starcrossd

I could begin to describe it, mention article after article.

I'm also not the brightest spark in the fire right now.

But it seems to be coming.

I mean the whole city already has stringent water restrictions.
But nothing is helping much.

I fear the day will come where water is shipped from other provinces, and everyone must stand in line.
And that is just water to drink.

www.groundup.org.za...

Cape Town introduces level five water restrictions.

Some more answers there.

But I can tell you now, the answers given there are too late.
Unless they can put up a desalination plant for millions of people at once.

Purdy please Israel?
Well, the only country I could imagine doing it.

www.enca.com...

I blame apartheid.

Wow ! That is not good.....can you move !

I am so blessed,we live on a goldmine in Mpumalanga Province and we have our own aquifer.The town 8 clix away has at times ran dry as well,and we could see municipal water trucks running 24/7 fetching water from the Bush here.After 20 years of ANC rule the country is falling apart at the seams.Epic and rampant corruption,mismanagement and theft,bungling ineptitude..and catastrophic shortsightedness.

a reply to: dashen

Why? The ANC has been in charge of running the country for over 2 decades now.With all the resources the previous government left them.Why should the ANC not be blamed?

No global people it is bad.

We've almost become accustomed to it now.

The dying gardens, the heavy water restrictions, that have sometimes seen neighbors turn into snitches.

Haven't seen a hosepipe in two years.

Everything full of 20kg plastic containers of "gray water" from the sink and the washing machine.

a reply to: Raxoxane

In this case the DA (ANC lite) are also to blame.

I recall 8 or 10 years back this Professor predicted exactly this nightmare.
And he got fired.
They wouldn't look into desalination, because of Israel (the left must boycott the Jews).
Nah - it will never happen.
Why trust a Professor?

But I mean that's a blame game now.
They all got excuses.

It is a drought.
Nobody can help that.
But this never happened before.

a reply to: Raxoxane

Why? Because they should have built all this infrastructure before they handed it over to a bunch of uncivilized children

I was wondering, because we cut back on water so much, our water-bill was R40.
That's for three adults and two animals.

You can't cut back more than that unless you put the tea-bag in the cup, and pour vodka over it.

Everywhere water has been reduced to a trickle.
No more pressure.
You soap your hands in the gents, and it takes 10 minutes to wash it off.

Gym showers restricted to two minutes.
Soon it's gonna be, bro, you got a wet wipe?
No jokes.

Now what floors me is that they are still inviting tourists, and marketing wider Cape Town as if nothing was the matter.

Many jobs depend on tourism, but that's the first thing they should stop.

Of course some hotels and venues have their own springs and boreholes, or water off the grid.
But still, this is not business as usual.

But those people are also going to malls, and farms and places that use public water.

And you can say you got water saving devices.
But every extra person uses up water.

Cape Town is surrounded by salt water. Why desalination efforts aren't in full force is beyond belief. The area of almost 4 million people should certainly have severe water restriction that everyone has to adhere to. But I also see that the humidity is currently in the high 70's and the average annual humidity rate is 75%. Why not use dehumidifiers for personal water consumption?

I actually purchased one recently for my own use but haven't tried it out yet as a water source. In my locale, I wouldn't be able to use it year round because of the weather and lack of humidity in the air but I could certainly use it for 5 months or so. I am going to try it out next spring. The electric bills might kill me, but ideally I would be running it off solar or wind power. I could use the water for gardening and small livestock. The dehumidifier I chose can pull 70 quarts of water from the air a day. I don't know how accurate that statement is but 17 gallons a day would be plenty for me. I don't have limited water resources at this time and don't expect them either but things could change and I want to know all my options.

I also want to use a composting toilet but I live in the country. I don't know how an area of huge population would resolve removing human waste.

If people would be more conscientious about their environment and make smart choices about resources, we and our planet would be so much better off.

It certainly seems dire at this time for the people in your area but hopefully, the situation can be resolved soon by either nature or manmade solutions so people have the water they need.

a reply to: halfoldman

India use trains to bring massive water bowsers into the cities when they have their droughts. Guessing their political parties haven't run down the infrastructure as much as yours have.

Cape Town's problems seem to have problems. When does it stop? I feel for you guys because it's so hard to imagine living under some of the pressures you have over there.

Ok, I got some beers buried in the park.

If a foreign film crew comes pretend you can suck liquid from the soil with a straw.

Tastes like whisky.

Another spot.
Tastes like Gin!
How much booze did you bury in the park when you thought we had no more water?
Considering everybody buried something, maybe quite a bit.