The downpour on Wednesday the 22nd April 1903 might not have been the most severe rain storm over the previous 83 years since 1820, by a wide margin, yet it did result in the deaths of two children.

Main picture: Storm damage to Rudolph Street South End in the flood of Wednesday 22nd April 1903

Unlike other rain storms experienced by the town, this one was fairly widespread with damages being incurred across the town from South End to North End. The number of deaths is never an indicator of the storm’s intensity. Instead the death rate is purely happenstance in other words being in the wrong place at the wrong time. In this case, these two children were swept into a drain and were drowned. Tragically one of the persons killed in the flood of 1968, was also drowned but instead of being washed into a drain, she was trapped underneath a car and was drowned in that manner.

Additional photos from A Butterworth’s album

Sources
Photos by Arthur Butterworth
Port Elizabeth: A Social Chronicle to the end of 1945 by Margaret Harradine (1996, E H Walton (Packaging (Pty) Ltd, Port Elizabeth, on behalf of the Historical Society of Port Elizabeth).