WOW to say thanks to all the wonderful volunteers that make up the SES (State Emergency Service). As a new SES volunteer in my small town of Chiltern North East Victoria, i am in awe of what SES volunteers actually do. Here is a small part of what SES crews do......
WHAT IS THE STATE EMERGENCY SERVICE?
The SES is a not-for-profit, community based, volunteer, emergency service enabled by both State and Local Governments.
The SES is the primary responder for storm and flood events. They also provide support to other agencies such as Police Service through performing additional functions including search and rescue, emergency traffic management, and road crash rescue.
The SES becomes involved in preparing for, and responding to, many different types of disasters and emergencies, by performing:
CYCLONES & STORMS
Performing temporary, emergency repairs
Removal of fallen trees that are a threat to life.
VERTICAL RESCUE
Rescuing people from heights and depths such as cliffs or ravines.
FLOOD BOAT RESPONSE
Assisting in emergency flood boat operations including:
evacuations
emergency supplies to flooded communities and
search in flood waters.
ROAD CRASH RESCUE
Rescuing people from crashed vehicles and performing vehicle extractions.
SEARCHES
Supporting the Police Service in undertaking urban, rural, forensic and evacuations searches.
EMERGENCY TRAFFIC MANAGEMENT
Supporting the Police Service in incident site traffic control, road closure and diversions.
URBAN SEARCH & RESCUE
Supporting the Fire Service in response to structural collapse.
AGENCY SUPPORT
Supporting other services in communications, welfare, lighting, air observation and resupply.
INCIDENT MANAGEMENT
Coordinating the responses of teams in the field and incident control
COMMUNITY EDUCATION
Working with the media and public to communicate safety messages and warnings. Helping the community to be more resilient to prepare for and respond to inevitable disasters.
I know for our small community who don't have a full time Police Officer, seeing an orange SES outfit coming to help with sandbagging to stop your house being flooded, or getting up in the middle of the night to cut a tree up that has either fallen on your roof or across a dark road, can be a relief. The training provided to all SES volunteers is amazing and great skills for everybody to know. Thanks for reading to the end and i know that's you way of saying thanks to all the volunteers
Here are a couple of photos of my wonderful PEXA team supporting WOW day and some of the wonderful things we do in the Chiltern SES.
PEXA QLD Team supporting WOW day Me in my outfit Big trees in the country And another tree down
... View more