General News
21 September, 2023
SES does C’down proud
ON Friday, September 8, when a violent storm front passed through the southwest of Victoria, 22 Victoria State Emergency Service (VICSES) units, including Camperdown SES, were mobilised to assist with the large number of calls for help.
ON Friday, September 8, when a violent storm front passed through the southwest of Victoria, 22 Victoria State Emergency Service (VICSES) units, including Camperdown SES, were mobilised to assist with the large number of calls for help.
While Camperdown was somewhat spared by the full impacts felt by communities at Warrnambool and Port Fairy, four volunteers from the SES Camperdown Unit came together to assist with the situation and responded to10 Requests for Assistance (RFAs) from impacted community members, including five calls for help with building damage.
Once the original crew of four, which included Bray Wright, Gary Brian, Taylor Walsh, and Christina Lee, handed over to a new crew from the unit at 10am, they left Camperdown for Warrnambool.
“When we arrived at Warrnambool at around 11am, there were still 220 calls waiting to be answered,” Mr Wright said.
“One of the first jobs we were given was a tree which had landed outside of a front door, shutting in the residents.
“It was still quite gusty however, so we still weren’t getting on roofs to do jobs that weren’t quite serious.
“Instead, we worked with the Incident Controller that had been appointed, to provide intelligence to assist them with prioritising jobs, once the conditions were safer.”
VICSES Camperdown Unit members are well regarded throughout the region for the support of other units during severe weather events, most notably during the Skipton floods last October.
Mr Wright said the Camperdown SES unit teamed up with the local Fire Rescue Victoria (FRV) unit and spent the afternoon of the storm going to building damage callouts.
“We tried where possible to use the roof cavity to manage the site of the damage from the inside,” he said.
VICSES volunteers are trained in the Safe Working at Heights System (SWAHS), if they need to tackle building damage, but SWAHS and its rope-system are not the first option volunteers will take when assessing a job.
If it’s safer to do it inside the house, or work from a ladder, they will do this instead.
But when they need it, every VICSES truck contains a SWAHS kit which includes slings, an industrial descender, 50m and 100m ropes, working lines, carabiners, and rockers to connect the harness to the working line.
Mr Wright said it was “great” to work with FRV, especially since the Camperdown SES unit was small.
“They are full-time operators, but don’t get to use SWAHS perhaps as much as we do, and they were willing to jump in and to get it done,” he said.
“It was great to see, and they were great to work with.
“To use the system you need a minimum of three people to operate it, along with two suitable anchor points like a sturdy tree, man-made anchor or truck.”
The Camperdown crew remained in Warrnambool until 6pm, attending 14 RFAs in total.
Mr Wright said he has been an SES volunteer for five and a half years.
“We currently have 18 active volunteers, including seven female volunteers,” he said.
“When I signed up the average age was 55, but it has come right back down with the recruitment we’ve done in the last few years.
“Younger members have a great willingness to learn from our more experienced members, and to find new ways of working.”
Camperdown’s SES unit is always looking for new members and called on the community to sign up as a volunteer.
To sign up, visit www.ses.vic.gov.au/join-us/volunteer.
For their time, volunteers receive nationally-recognised training with the opportunity to pursue specialist learning pathways such as community engagement, Road Crash Rescue, and much more.