Durban - Boat owners from around Durban were seen conducting their own rescue operations in an effort to ease the burden of state and private rescue teams who were stretched thin during the recent storms that swept through KwaZulu-Natal.
In the wake of the severe flooding caused by the heavy rains which started on Friday, dozens of residents around the city were left stranded in their homes waiting for help to arrive.
And so it did. In Isipingo, just south of Durban, boats were seen operating around the Engen garage and the Big Ben area.
With the water almost at neck height for some, the urban sailors were seen steering their boats around residential areas, stopping at houses and picking up the stranded.
Ryan Hanson, the owner of Durban Yamaha Marine, a local boating company, told IOL that he received a call at around 8.30pm on Monday from someone requesting his help.
After rescuing stranded truck drivers and the citizens at various stops around the Springfield area near the Umgeni River, Hanson said he only returned home at 3.30am the next morning.
He was back out a couple hours later rescuing people in Prospecton on Tuesday morning.
Ryan Hanson, owner of Durban Yamaha Marine, drives through a flooded southern freeway in Durban on Tuesday. Hanson together with his assistant, were conducting rescue operations picking up the stranded.
Video: Ryan Hanson pic.twitter.com/yoWKySOYHa
The Durban south area was one of the harder-hit regions of the city, as an entire section of the N2 freeway was left submerged. Shipping containers from a terminal near the old airport in Isipingo were seen floating down the motorway as if it were a river.
Hanson said the experience of driving his boat down the southern freeway was surreal.
“The guys phoned me at about 8.30 last night and I remember getting home at around 3.30 this morning. We were helping out in Springfield Park and today we have been helping out in the Prospecton area,” the local fisherman said.
Around 20 people across KZN have died as a result of the storm, according to the provincial government, with an unconfirmed number of people reported missing.
IOL