Storm-battered CT picks up the pieces

Ray Smuts CAPE TOWN was literally picking up the pieces at week's end after the most horrific storms in many a year as port movements ground to a halt, ships lifted anchor to ride out the weather and at least one vessel ran aground. The latter part of the week saw winds gusting up to 150km/h and waves of up to seven metres - what the weather office initially predicted as a not unusual weather pattern for this time of year - smashing homes and businesses from elite Bakoven alongside Camps Bay to as far afield as Langebaan, Hermanus and Betty's Bay. At Scarborough near Simon's Town the R-31, a 30-metre former naval vessel, experienced engine difficulties and ended up on the beach. Inclement weather prevented her from being pulled free. Guests had to be evacuated at a Kalk Bay restaurant after a nine-metre wave smashed into the premises and a Sikorsky helicopter was hurriedly called in to airlift a Bakoven National Sea Rescue Institute boat during a storm that peaked on Saturday - described by NSRI station commander Brad Geyser as the worst he had experienced in 28 years. The weather had pretty much settled down in Cape Town by Sunday morning and come sundown eight vessels, four of them container ships, lay at anchor in Table Bay.