Johan Swan’s maize fields are flooded but his humour is dry.
Swim-walking through his mealies — only the stalks are above water — on his drowned farm near Barkly West, he says: “Ja, die pivot kan maar staan.” Meaning he’s not going to have to crank up the irrigation system any time soon.
Swan is living the Johnny Cash song Five Feet High and Rising:
“We can make it to the road in a homemade boat
That’s the only thing we got left that’ll float
It’s already over all the wheat and the oats
Two feet high and risin’.”
Augrabies Falls looks and sounds like the end of the world
The waters are still rising in KwaZulu-Natal as well. The Umgeni and Msunduzi rivers are roiling currents of muddy water. Midmar and Wagendrift dams are overtopping (and have been since January, something for those living directly downstream to keep in mind). Also, Namibia is under water — good news for anyone hiking the usually parched Fish River canyon this season.
Augrabies Falls looks and sounds like the end of the world as the Orange River, obese with runoff, tries and fails to squeeze through the narrow fissure in the rock, and finds its own furious paths into the gorge.
They’re singing Cash’s song in Parys too, as the Vaal Dam sluices open and its pent-up flood roars downstream.
“Well, the rails are washed out north of town
We gotta head for higher ground
We can’t come back till the water goes down
Five feet high and risin’.”
The flow at the Barrage may yet reach 3,000m³ per second. Its usual summer flow is about 250m³-400m³.
“It floods into our houses at 1,700,” says a friend while packing dogs, cat and keepsakes into his bakkie and heading for safety.
Meanwhile, even as some still believe climate change is a hoax, more rain (“blessed”, Cash would say) is on the way. The ground can take no more and the water will run. Maybe even higher than five feet and risin’.
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