{"id":860113,"date":"2026-05-11T14:49:01","date_gmt":"2026-05-11T12:49:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=860113"},"modified":"2026-05-11T14:49:06","modified_gmt":"2026-05-11T12:49:06","slug":"all-schools-in-the-western-cape-closed-due-to-severe-storms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/860113\/all-schools-in-the-western-cape-closed-due-to-severe-storms\/","title":{"rendered":"All schools in the Western Cape closed due to severe storms"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Western Cape Provincial Government has announced that all schools in the province will be closed on Tuesday, 12 May, due to severe storms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The government said that the decision has been taken in the interests of learner and teacher safety.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was decided after extensive consultation with the Provincial Disaster Management Centre and the South African Weather Service (SAWS).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The closures apply to all public ordinary and special schools in the province<\/strong>, it said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Our default position is always to keep schools open and only close schools in exceptional circumstances, but we are mindful of the severity of the warnings in place,” it said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We will continuously monitor and evaluate the situation to ensure that schools can reopen as soon as possible, which is currently expected to be on Wednesday, 13 May 2026.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The provincial government noted that, as of Monday, a total of 227 schools had applied for closure in addition to the closure list issued for the Cape Winelands, Eden and Central Karoo districts.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A number of schools have also suffered damage due to the storm, which is currently being assessed, it added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The province is currently being hit by severe storms, with two major cold fronts making landfall between Sunday, 10 May and Tuesday, 12 May.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The larger of the cold fronts is currently hitting the coast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The SAWS has issued several warnings over the past few days, the most pertinent of which is a level 8 warning for Monday (11 May), which is expected to be downgraded to a level 6 on Tuesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The level 8 warning is for disruptive rain which could lead to the widespread flooding of roads, bridges and informal settlements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A level 6 warning over strong winds and rough seas is also in place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The National Disaster Management Centre has classified the storms as a national disaster, with emergency services on high alert to deal with any related incidents and emergencies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Western Cape Provincial Government has announced that all schools in the province will be closed on Tuesday, 12 May, due to severe storms.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":860116,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[6329,25387,3024],"class_list":["post-860113","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-schools","tag-severe-storms","tag-western-cape"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/860113","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=860113"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/860113\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":860117,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/860113\/revisions\/860117"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/860116"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=860113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=860113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=860113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}