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No idea where to mention these photos, so this forum seems as good as any!

Thought some of you might like to see these taken in mid to late February when the flood was at its peak.
Did not see much game (!) but I am glad to have been there.

Sorry - the quality is not good. Taken with the 'still' facility on a Sony Camcorder.

Richard

http://www.pbase.com/richardharris/flood

Thanks for the flood pix. I was there in July 2000 and there was still much evidence of the power of the flood, especially the deeply bent rails on the Letaba bridge, so it is interesting to see how that was caused. Fascinating pix.

I remember about 2 months after the flood, I did the Napi Trail walk.
The ground was still soaked, at places up to a few mm's of water.
The river the Napi trail camp borders on was still flowing pretty strong, I know I did post some pics showing my trail experience.
After that walk, we pretty much threw our hiking boots/shoes away as the they had been exposed to 3 days of constant water.
I remember driving from Skukuza along the river and the devastation was incredible.
We spent a few hours in Skukuza and one of the staff showed us where the water had risen up too, it was scary.
The railing on the bridge had been buckled like cheap pieces of wire, quite amazing to see the power and destruction of water

Came across these two photo's on the Net.
Before the floods:

After the floods:

Same location, slight changes...

The source. Interesting page actually about the Luvuvhu River Catchment.

Freda, is this the railroad bridge you referred to in a post in another topic?

I have quite a few pictures taken during the floods of 2000 at their height.
Including Skukuza , Croc Bridge, etc.

They were sent to me by Friedrich R., at the time a Project Manager for KNP.
As I recall he was Project Mgr. for Orpen and Satara cams way back then??
Pics were taken by a friend of his, whose name Friedrich didn't
mention. (But maybe he is out there in cyberspace viewing this pic?)

Elaine

But please note that a lot of photos, including the one posted above, have been published by Sanparks on this site and can be found here (pdf-file).

When Stephen brought up the topic again last night, I did some searching and found more info and photos taken by KNP employees in the Media Releases Archive 2000. Scroll down to the bottom of the page.

I happened to be in the Park that weekend too. These photos were taken at the HIGH water bridge near Skukuza (from the Satara side)

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This last one was taken from the same spot about a month later. You can clearly see the damage caused to the railings.

It's a credit to the bridge builders that it was still there!

Large

Wonderful pics and unbelievable.

I remember that i saw pics in German TV and CNN of the flood, especially from Mozambique.
But when i went in September 2000 to KNP, I never noticed the damage, only at 1 or 2 points were lots of broken trees.
Unbelievable how fast and hard the staff must have worked to make so many things going on.

My 20-year old son, Bradley, spent a rather uncomfortable night stranded in the Park during the floods.

He was staying at Orpen at the time and he and his girlfriend had gone to Skukuza to get some cash and they were on their return to camp when they got stuck in a drift on one of the sand roads just north of Tshokwane.

At this stage the water was only up to the car's axles and he wasn’t unduly worried but, unable to move the car, the water soon rose, flooding the car.
He managed to find some rocks nearby and propped them against the wheels to prevent the car from being washed off the road.

By this time it was starting to get dark and rather than venture off for help, wisely opted for the safety of the car.
The water rose steadily and got to about 6 inches from the roof so they clambered out through the windows and sat on the roof.

To make matters worse, it started to rain and they were really cold, so they got back into the flooded car (where it was warmer?) and they sat on a cooler-box on the back seat with just their heads above water.

By this stage my other son, still at Orpen, was going frantic with worry because the gates had closed and they hadn’t yet returned to camp.
He alerted the camp staff but because it was dark and most of the roads were impassable, there was little that they could do.
Besides, they didn’t really know where to even start looking.

After a rather unforgettable night, Bradley and his girlfriend were rescued by some other tourists in a 4x4 who had managed to get through.
They kindly gave them a hot drink and some food and wrapped them up warmly and took them to Satara where my other son was mightily relieved to see them.

Bradley’s car was left where it was in the bush for many weeks as nobody was able to recover it.
When it was eventually towed out the insurance company wrote it off as the inside was full of mud and sand and was totally ruined.

Incredible story mafortini. Thank goodness it had a happy ending.

Strange that you noticed no flood damage in Sept 2000. I was in the park in July/August 2000 and there was still plenty of evidence of the power of the flood.
For example,

- The first 2-3 rows of bungalows closest to the river at Skukuza were roped off and uninhabitable, the old restaurant was also closed and later replaced.
- Most of the roads around Lower Sabie were still closed, as was to S3.
Other road closings were posted at all the camps I visited over two weeks.
- Shimuwini was still closed, as was the low water bridge over the Letaba River on the H14
- the railings of the high water bridge over the Letaba on the tar road were impressively bent and broken and there was still a massive amount of flood debris in all the rivers
- the road to Crooks Corner was closed

I was impressed both by how much had been repaired AND by how much damage was still evident 5 months after the floods.
Gives you a very healthy respect for the power of nature.

We visited KNP late February 2000 when there were the floods. My picture of the view from Olifants outlook shows the same scene as your picture, richardharris.
Didn't head for the Southern part of the park as it was mentioned in the SANParks news there were still flood problems. We changed a booking from one night in Pkop to an additional night in Satara.
The Satara area looked like paradise.
Zebras enjoying the green ...

... a lazy hyena ... ready to hide when the next rain starts ...

and an ellie guard blocking the road to get the youngsters cross in safety.

You can be glad not to hear the sound with this picture ... loud trumpets warning everybody to come closer.

Sorry for the poor quality. These pictures are from the time before I went digital ... these are pictures of pictures ...

Potential flooding in Kruger

There are many similarities WTM.

I was thinking back over "flood years".
The other year I recall is 1988.