Water restored in Northcliff after long outage, but later gushing in the street due to burst pipe

After almost a week of water outages in Northcliff, Johannesburg, due to a glitch at the Northcliff Tower, water was restored in the area late on Thursday evening. 

One of the residents direly affected, Jolandi Kuhn, said the past few days were tough. 

“I was irritated and frustrated, especially with a house full of children. But after reading about the 71-year-old woman who had to bathe in her cold pool, I realised how much I still have to be grateful for.”  

She added they were without water but had a pool to flush toilets and could drive to her mother's house for a shower.

“So many people walk kilometres daily just to carry buckets of water. It’s a reality check. I know corruption and greed are a huge part of the deeper problem, but I want to take a moment to thank the people who showed up.”

She added the team worked almost four days straight to get things running again and deserve credit. Kuhn thanked councillor Nicolene Jonker, “who is such a hands-on, incredible leader”.

Jonker thanked residents for their patience, resilience and understanding during a frustrating and exhausting time. She said Johannesburg Water was working with old infrastructure. 

She wrote a heartwarming message on the area's community group about how deeply the outage affected families, routines and peace of mind. 

“Please know I’m not just reporting your concerns but fighting for you. I’ve pushed hard for a permanent valve solution to protect the Northcliff Tower.

“I told Johannesburg Water management point-blank: 'Why are you interfering with something that works? The tower has been functioning — cutting it off every night is causing more harm than good,'” she said.

She added the water utility argued that the nightly water shedding helped reduce overall consumption but she couldn’t disagree more.

“I’ll be posting Rand Water’s statistics to back that up. I clarified that they must stop shutting off the pump station completely if there is no other option. The system is set to automatically switch off, but I’ve asked them to throttle the flow for now at night to keep some water moving. That way, our infrastructure stands a fighting chance and so do our residents.” 

She said that when the taps run dry, the infrastructure suffers; pipes shrink and then crack when water rushes back; air builds up and causes pressure surges that burst pipes; sediment settles; dirty water flows; and joints fail and leak, causing further damage. 

While the water has been restored, residents woke to another burst pipe on Friday across one of the streets, with water gushing down the road and flooding reported at some homes. 

TimesLIVE