WATCH | 'Jesus, please protect my family - a storm just hit our house'

"Jesus please protect my family. A storm just hit our house. I am not even there ... "

These were the words of Afrikaans singer Louis Geldenhuys after seeing video footage of his home being pummelled by a cold front in Cape Town.

The city was lashed by heavy rain and buffeted by fierce gusts of wind – knocking out power temporarily in some areas, uprooting trees and causing flood damage to at least 3,000 homes and roads across the metro on Tuesday.

Plummeting temperatures left many people living in informal settlements vulnerable and cold.

The singer, who was on tour in Pretoria promoting an album and music video, took to Facebook and said: "Jesus please protect my family. A storm just hit our house. I am not even there ... "

His family was at home when the storm hit, tearing out glass windows in an outdoor area and blowing away outside furniture.

"Louis, our entire f****n roof is gone," a woman is heard saying in a version of the clip with audio.

A second woman is heard saying: "Oh donner the roof blew away. Oh f**k there goes the windows, oh there goes the benches. You can't go outside, you will be blown away."

Fellow singer and close friend of Geldenhuys, Manie Jackson, also took to Facebook to share the destructiveness of the storm. "Our plan was to head back home today, but here in Bloubergstrand things got a bit out of hand, so we are waiting to see if things will calm down," he wrote.

Disaster risk management spokesperson for the city, Charlotte Powell, said there had been flooding at informal settlements in Masiphumelele in Fish Hoek, Imizamo Yethu in Hout Bay and Makhaza in Khayelitsha, affecting about 3,000 dwellings on Tuesday.

In Imizamo Yethu, seven dwellings were damaged by an uprooted tree. Roofs were damaged by strong winds in Mamre, Strand, Gugulethu and Belhar.

Roads were flooded across the city in areas such as Southfield, Grassy Park, Killarney, Kraaifontein, Atlantis, Mamre, Hout Bay, Kuils River, Mitchells Plain, Macassar, Parow and Durbanville.

The bad weather also resulted in power outages in parts of the city, including Bellville, Phillippi, Nyanga, Simon's Town, Bonteheuwel, Mannenberg, Crawford, Milnerton, Observatory, Thornton and Oranjezicht.

The SA Weather Service issued warnings for snowfalls overnight on Tuesday and into Wednesday morning over the southern Namakwa district including towns such as Sutherland - with a high of 3°C forecast for Wednesday - and Calvinia. Snow was also expected in areas ranging from Grabouw to Clanwilliam and Ceres.

High seas, with waves of 6m-7m, surged along the coast from Saldanha Bay to Hermanus, Table Bay around to George and Knysna.

Warnings were also issued for damaging winds in several parts of the Eastern Cape.