Western Cape shifts to storm recovery with priority road projects underway
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19-06-2026
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Eyewitnessnews
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Premier Alan Winde said while the province's initial priority was to save lives, access to most of the affected areas in the province had now been restored.
The Western Cape government said it was shifting its focus from emergency response to long-term recovery following the severe storms that hit the province recently.
Assessments of the storm damage, which left 12 people dead, show costs exceeding R9 billion.
Premier Alan Winde said while the province's initial priority was to save lives, access to most of the affected areas in the province had now been restored.
Winde said around 70 percent of roads that were closed had now been reopened, but damage to infrastructure remained a major challenge.
Winde joined Western Cape government officials at a briefing earlier on Thursday on the extent of the damage to infrastructure.
Infrastructure MEC Tertuis Simmers said several roads and bridges in the province would require complex repairs or full reconstruction.
Simmers said his team had identified 19 priority road repair projects, with some work already underway.
He said Meiringspoort was one of the areas that had been worst hit.
"We only did one of the three sections of Meiringspoort, which has washed away, where we have seen the scale of the impact of poor management of the rivers, which has impacted infrastructure."
Finance MEC Deidré Baartman said R100 million was being set aside for urgent infrastructure repairs.
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