Sun City Resort says everything is largely back to normal following the devastating storm that wreaked havoc there, causing flooding and damage to the popular holiday destination over the weekend.

“We worked through the night on Saturday, Sunday and Monday to turn the resort around, and guests and visitors arriving at Sun City now would not realise that a storm of this magnitude took place,” the resort’s group executive Raul de Lima said in a statement.

De Lima said there was now very little visible damage remaining.

“Our insurance mobilised very quickly, sending their assessors on Sunday to begin the job of quantifying the damage. They understand it was a freak storm and we are covered for that,” he said.

PICS: Massive storm batters Sun City Resort, guests evacuated, told to go home

De Lima said that the Sun City Convention Centre had suffered substantial damage, but fortunately no conferences had been booked to take place at this time of the year. He said they were working to get the facilities back into running order before conferences began in mid-January. 

The pool at The Palace was open again to residents only, and restaurants, bars, and the Valley of the Waves were all operational again, he said.

“There are some rooms out of commission, due to the flooding. Four-hundred rooms were out of commission by Saturday evening, and roughly half are back in inventory. I estimate that there will be about 120 rooms that we won’t be able to put back in the next two to three weeks, due to extensive damage, but we’ve mobilised contractors and assessors are quantifying the losses; so work started in earnest on Tuesday morning to get these rooms back into operation as soon as possible,” he said.

De Lima added that the Soho Hotel – the resort’s main hotel – had suffered the greatest damage to its rooms.

He said an insurance assessment conducted on Tuesday had indicated that the damage was greater than anticipated.

“As a result, the Soho Hotel will not be taking any new bookings until January 7, 2018.”