June 2007
When you do storm damage work, it has to be prioritized,
we are protecting life then property. A tree threatening to demolish a
home will always win over cleaning up the remains of a tree already on the
ground. When you pull into a street you will always get people coming up to you
asking for assistance, we try to help where we can but this is not always
possible…When we arrived at Wyong and had our briefing we were told that there
were currently 1000+ jobs that needed to be completed, by the time we left this
number had risen.
Wyong Storm Damage
08th June 2007
Late on Friday night a call was received, crews
were needed for assistance in storm damage. The storms of previous days had
covered such a large area that we were unsure at the time of the call just where
we would be going, choices (or bets) were Warringah-Pittwater, Gosford,
Hunter, Newcastle or a number of other locations.A
crew of four was arranged, this included OIC, Driver, Chainsaw Operator and
First Aider. Arrangements were that we would meet at Windsor at 5am and
find out then just where we were to be tasked.
5am Saturday
We met the other brigades who were to form our
strike team at Windsor and were informed that we were headed to Wyong. We
would meet further brigades who were forming the task force at a truck stop
along the way. When we met up with them we found that brigades had come from the
Cumberland district, Wollondilly Shire, Baulkham Hills district and the
Hawkesbury. Our Task Force Leader was from the Warringah-Pittwater district.
6.30am
We arrive at Wyong Fire Control center. After a
warming cup of coffee and a briefing we are tasked to cover a number of
different locations within the Wyong local area. The State Emergency Service
were coordinating the efforts and had provided us with a list of jobs to be
completed.
6.45am
We set off to our first job. A team was left to
deal with several homes in a street, the others moved on a few streets away to
deal with yet more devastation
Our first job was a tree over a shed which was
threatening to demolish the shed. (1)The Officers in Charge on our tankers had a look and decided that we could
safely remove the tree and set about accomplishing the task.
(1)
Whilst at this location we had several
other reports come in from a neighboring street, trees over power lines,
trees down over homes. One of our brigades was dispatched to investigate, this
done we headed off to our next job. It was like this for most of the day,
job to job, can we safely remove the tree or will it require specialist help.
There was only one that we decided that we would not touch so we made it as safe
as we could and passed it up the line.
At some point during the day we stopped
for a meal break and a warming cup of coffee and to await further tasking.
This was when we found out that further storms were on the way.
(2)
Our first task after lunch was a huge
tree over the back part of a house, (2) it
had been tarped and left in place, but with the news of further storms we
realised that further water damage to the house would occur if we left it as it
was, so we removed a few branches, retied the tarp and this was when we found
that just around the corner an 85 year old lady was trapped in her home because
of rising flood waters.(3) It transpires that her
daughter had wanted her to leave earlier, but she refused. Now she couldn’t
leave. We spoke to her and explained the situation and she agreed to let us
carry her out. This was done using a member from Grose Wold who was joined by a
member from Headquarters, this done the author of this page got a big kiss and cuddle
and a huge thank you from her, and we sent her off with our Strike Team Leader
to her daughters home not far away.
(3)
Just after this we were told that we
could stand down and return home. It was getting dark and chainsaw operations
would have to cease. There were a few comments from those in the truck that they
didn’t want to go because there was still a lot of work to be done.
We started to head back out to the
highway, and received a call on the radio from our Task Force Leader. He said
that he knew that we had done our fair share and had a very long day, but how
would we feel about staying to assist in an evacuation of an entire street. I am
proud to say that amongst the four on the truck, not one said no, or complained,
within a second all had said yes.
So off we went. Doorknocking an entire
street in Chittaway Bay which was within hours about to be hit not only by
another storm, with high winds, but also rising floodwaters.
We walked door to door through quickly
rising water 
to let
people know and assisted a few of them with lifting furniture and
electrical goods. Several were taken out by us as they had no way of leaving
under their own steam. Somewhere around 8.30 pm we completed this task, and were
told again that we could stand down and return home. We stopped off on the way
home for a feed and arrived back at 10pm. Very cold, very wet and tired.
Hopefully we had in a small way helped.
Further crew from the Hawkesbury were
again on scene on Sunday, and again Monday. It is not known if we will again be
sending crews up through the week, but we know that should we be asked, our
brigade will again respond.
Editors note: Link to the
street in Chittaway
that we door knocked. This is on the SES site. Completely understandable why
they wanted to evacuate!
