Cape Town counts down to D-day, when the taps turn off
In just under 10 weeks, Cape Town plans to turn off its water taps. Millions of residents in South Africa’s “Mother City” are preparing for the worst. “Everybody is panicking,” said Fowzia Hendricks, 52, who travels more than 12 miles to a natural spring outside South African Breweries (SAB) in Newlands every few days to stock up on drinking water, joining the queue to fill 15- and 25-litre containers.
“We heard the city might run out of water but we didn’t think it would happen,” Mrs Hendricks said, holding her six-month-old grandson. “I think it’s very serious.”
For the past three years, this city has been in the grip of an unprecedented drought. The historic dry spell, coupled with its booming population, has left Cape Town’s dams at only about 26 per cent capacity.
When they reach 13.5 per cent – a point the city is calling Day Zero, predicted to hit on April 16 – the authorities will turn off most of the city’s taps and its four million residents will have to get their water at about 200 collection points monitored by police and the military. Officials have acknowledged that the problem is almost unavoidable, potentially making Cape Town the first major city in modern times to run out of water.
The drought “is a catastrophe” said Neil Armitage, head of the University of Cape Town’s urban water management department. “It’s like waking up one day to a magnitude 7 earthquake. The buildings are falling down. Everyone is in a panic.”
Capetonians are stockpiling water, clearing supermarket shelves as they leave with trolleys heavy with plastic bottles. Police stand guard at natural springs after fights broke out between people queuing, and the city’s tourism industry is suffering as sun-seeking visitors stay away.
Though the city is scrambling to get more water in its system using groundwater and desalination plants, many frustrated residents accuse the city of mismanaging the water supply.
“They’ve had years to plan for this,” said Bill Kennedy, wiping sweat from his brow after hauling 20 litres of spring water to his car in the beating midday sun. He said he was thinking about leaving the city before April 16. “Can you imagine when D-day comes?”
At the PPC Newlands Cricket ground, a near-sacred site for England cricket fans on tour, staff have had to find their own ways to keep business running. Newlands has its own borehole, but it has only been watering its outfield once a week, down from four. It “hurt” to see turf patches getting brown, said Evan Flint, the groundsman.
As of this week, residents are only permitted to use 50 litres of city water per person per day – about enough to drink, wash one sink of dishes, take a two-minute shower and flush the lavatory once, according to city data.
Whether they meet that target, and potentially avoid Day Zero, remains to be seen. Only 55 per cent of city residents were meeting the previous 87-litre requirement.
At home, Capetonians have been forced to get creative. Baths are out. Hand sanitiser is in. Residents take brief showers over buckets every few days, and use the water to flush their lavatories. Sales for products such as dry shampoo and wet wipes are up, and tanks for collecting rainwater are increasingly hard to come by.
“I haven’t bathed for over a year and I have the most beautiful bath overlooking the garden,” said Meg Mcgarrick, a Hout Bay area resident, as she wheeled a trolley full of water bottles out of a shop “just in case”.
While a black market for water has predictably sprung up, legitimate businesses are also experiencing a boom as desperate residents seek new ways to survive.
In the Stonehurst Mountain Estate, an upmarket housing development, Trevor Hennings has installed more than a dozen boreholes that tap into
‘It’s like waking up one day to a magnitude 7 earthquake, everyone is in a panic’
the aquifer beneath the city for residents who want to go off the grid at the hefty price of up to 250,000 rand (£14,670).
“There’s blind panic now,” said Mr Hennings, owner of Drillco. In a normal year, Mr Hennings says he has 10 or 20 clients on his waiting list for boreholes. Now he has about 6,700 waiting customers. “I’ve done whole suburbs. I’ve drilled Cape Town like Swiss cheese.”
But for people who make a living off tourism, the water crisis poses a serious threat. Cape Town attracts millions of visitors a year, with tourism accounting for more than seven per cent of the city’s gross domestic product and tens of thousands of jobs.
Cape Town’s cluster of high-end hotels now have to find ways to keep their luxury-seeking guests. The Vineyard Hotel, which sits on a sprawling seven acres, has its own borehole to keep the estate lush.
But the hotel has still had to take unusual measures, such as encouraging guests to be judicious about flushing, providing buckets and timers in showers, covering the outdoor pool for part of the day to avoid water evaporating, and draining a historic fountain. “From a guestexperience perspective, not being able to flush a lavatory is a disaster,” said Alison Mckie, group commercial manager for the Petousis Hotel Group.
She added that conservation was going to have to be the “new normal” for Cape Town. “There’s a lot of innovation. How do we take water from cooking vegetables and use it to wash the floor?”
As April 16 inches closer, the looming water shut-off will inevitably keep visitors away, but those who are already there say they are determined to enjoy the what the city has to offer.
“We booked in May, before all this started. After April, when D-day comes, I don’t know if I’d book again,” said Gabby Bunea, of Sunderland.
She said she hadn’t even heard of the crisis before a friend asked if she was going to pack her own water.
After a little research, she said, she arrived knowing what to expect and doesn’t mind the hotel’s two-minute shower rule, among other small inconveniences.
But some in the business think the damage may have been done.
“If people hear there’s no water in Cape Town, they’re not going to come here for a holiday,” said Bruce Alfred Nyoni, a Uber driver. Since last year, tourist passenger numbers have plummeted, Mr Nyoni said. “The city is trying to save water, but they killed our business.”