By Mikayla van Loon
A member of the Lilydale SES crew has put up his hand to assist with the clean up in Sydney’s flood zone and was one of 18 to fly out earlier this week.
Unit controller Shaun Caulfield said this was the second VICSES call out for assistance, the first being for specialised crews in boat operation to assist with rescues and assessment.
Turning now, hopefully, to the clean up, Mr Caulfield said the group of 18 members are each trained in storm damage and will be focused in the Gosford region.
“They’ll be doing whatever they’re tasked with by New South Wales SES. So clean up work, there’s potentially some sandbagging and the like, but it’ll really very much depend on whatever tasks they get given,” he said.
Depending on what happens over the next few days in terms of rainfall, Mr Caulfield said it could change the nature of the work ahead of SES crews.
“[It can be] quite dynamic during these flooding events, if they get more rain, they could be involved in active intervention work.
“If the rain doesn’t continue, then they’ll be assisting with cleanup and trying to get people back to their houses and help them work out what the damage is.”
Mr Caulfield said the unpredictability of these types of events can alter deployments and crews will take each day as it comes.
As the fourth major flooding event for New South Wales in 18 months, Mr Caulfield said SES management staff and active crews would be needing some respite having dealt with such extreme weather events in a relatively short period of time.
“It’s certainly been a significant flood workload for New South Wales SES in the last 18 months and they are quite well resourced in that space but it sometimes becomes more than the agency can handle on its own.
“We’ve had New South Wales SES volunteers down here in Victoria for different events and we all help each other out where needed.”
In total VICSES has had a contingent of 46 people, both on-the-ground members and management staff, head to Sydney to interchange in the roster.
Lachlan left for Sydney on the afternoon of Tuesday 5 July and will return home on Sunday 10 July.
Mr Caulfield said on behalf of the SES, he wanted to thank employers, who themselves are potentially struggling with staffing already, in allowing their workers to give their time to their role in the SES in such a capacity.
“It’s a significant impact on an employer to release someone for that period of time. So we think any employer who’s able to do that, to allow our members to assist the community, it’s very, very gracious of them and we’re continually grateful for the support of employees to allow our members to do that.”
The rain in NSW was expected to move further north to the mid-north central coast putting these areas on alert but should ease in the already affected regions of Sydney as of Thursday morning.
