Estate Living Magazine Invest SA - Issue 41 May 2019 | Page 66

g O O d
again he swam in through the branches, broken furniture, shattered
wagons and other floating debris, and retuned with bewildered,
traumatised people. Eventually, as the fearsome flash flood
subsided, he lay exhausted in the mud.
Glancing up at Table Mountain, Johannes ran his fingers over the
rope of twisted human hair. It was mostly brown, but there were
strands of blonde and jet black – and even streaks of grey. All the
surviving women of the town had contributed a lock of hair and
woven it into this commemorative watch fob for him.
He smiled. The recollection of that warmth, and of the brave,
optimistic and grateful faces of the survivors, displaced the terrible
memory of that cold, dark, hellish night. He straightened his spine,
releasing the tension that had crept into his powerful shoulders, and
strode off into the sunny afternoon.
l i f e
Why there are flash floods in the Karoo
The Karoo is a dry, semidesert region with infrequent rain
and dry river beds – river beds that may not see water for
decades. When it does rain, however, it can rain hard. Water
levels can rise very rapidly and, because the rivers are usually
dry, the channel may be blocked, so the floodwaters tend
to build up behind all manner of barriers before breaching
them and continuing as a higher and faster wave, pushing
huge trees, rocks, fences, bits of buildings or even animals
and people down the river bed and flood plain at terrifying
speed. Such floods occur in the Karoo at irregular intervals
once or twice a decade, but most are not as destructive as
that of 1871. In fact, while flash floods are always dramatic,
they are dangerous only when they run through populated
areas. After the flood described in the story, Victoria West
suffered another one in 1909 so, in 1918, they built a dam
that they hope will prevent a recurrence. So far so good.
The best documented and most devastating such flood in
South Africa was the 1981 Laingsburg flood that claimed
over 100 lives, and destroyed more than 180 homes. (There’s
a whole museum in Laingsburg devoted to this flood.)
The facts: The Northern Cape town of Victoria West was
devastated by a flash flood in 1871, with more than 60
fatalities. Johannes Buyskes arrived at the town in time to
save a number of people, and Rainie Dodds was drowned
in her wedding dress that she had been trying on when the
town was engulfed by a four-metre-high wall of water.
The artefact: In Victorian times, human-hair fob chains
were made either as romantic gifts to loved ones, or from
the hair of recently deceased people to remember them by.
As far as I know, this may be the only instance of a collective
human-hair watch fob. The one on display in the Victoria
West Museum is not the actual one given to Johannes
Buyskes, but it is an authentic Victorian piece. The watch fob
is part of a general display on the history and material culture
of the town.
The museum: Victoria West Regional Museum (053 621
0413) also has a section on Karoo fossils, particularly fish
fossils, and a large collection of historical guns.
The moral: Don’t build on flood plains.
Jennifer Stern