By Shelby Brooks
In our worst times of need this year, dedicated SES volunteers were there risking their lives to save ours.
In 2021, Mother Nature caused damages never before seen in the district.
Cardinia Shire was hit hard by a storm in June, which Emerald’s SES controller Ben Owen, described as the “worst I’ve seen for the last 17 years“.
“If you drive through between Pakenham and Cockatoo, it’s just nuts. It’s like a bombs gone off, it’s hard to describe,“ Ben said at the time.
Ben Owen has had a roller coaster 12 months.
“Where do you even begin?“ he asked, as he sat down to reflect on the year that was.
On Wednesday 9 June, Ben said members had an inkling it would be a rough night.
“The service was moving a lot of crew down to Traralgon to help with the flooding so initially that was our biggest concern,“ he said.
But once Ben had knocked off work to head to the unit base, he found trees had began to fall across the roads.
“By 4pm we had all four vehicles on the road and by about 6.30pm, calls were coming in every other minute,“ Ben said.
“That’s when we realised we would be quite busy.“
After 8pm, rescue calls started to come into the base, though phone reception was patchy.
“They were threat to life calls, people trapped in their houses mainly in Olinda,“ Ben said.
“But there were trees on the roads everywhere. It was near on impossible to get to there.“
At 10pm, one of the SES Emerald’s response cars was crushed by a falling tree, the photos sending shockwaves through the community when they realised how volunteers had been so close to a fatal accident.
“We had a bit of radio coverage and I got a message through to say ’did you hear about the vehicle being crushed?’,“ Ben recalled.
He recreated the moment he radioed back, gasping and clutching his chest.
“I was like ’Are the members okay?’ Because that’s all I cared about,“ he said.
“The crew heard cracking in the dark and didn’t know where to run but I guess they ran in the right direction because they’re alive and well.“
Hearing the members were ok only offered a moment of relief before members forged on with the task at hand.
“We still have a job to do. Those members ended up rescuing a man who had fallen from his veranda underneath his house. They carried him out to the road to the ambulance, which was quite an ordeal with trees falling down around them,“ Ben said.
“They saved his life effectively.“
Those four members who had the near brush with death ended up spending the night on the floor of the Lilydale SES unit, unable to contact their families to tell them they were safe.
Ben said the unit received 800 calls for help, but estimates there were even more jobs completed that weren’t called in.
“That night was out of the box,“ Ben said.
“And the next five days were full on.
“The level of damage up on the hill had never been seen before. We just went one tree at a time.“
Ben said the Emerald CFA captain had referred to the night as the scariest he’d experienced, even scarier than Black Saturday.
“That puts it into context that someone who’s fought roaring fires found the damage of the storm more horrendous and risky,“ Ben said.
Another strong wind warning came in August but this time, the Emerald SES had a problem.
Heartless thieves had targeted the unit base the weekend before, stealing a generator battery, car trailer, wrecked car and four mag wheels.
“We can’t be losing power to the facilities on a night when we need to respond to people’s needs,“ Ben said in August.
Strong winds hit again in October, again leaving hundreds without power for another week.
This time it was personal for Ben.
His Cockatoo home was crushed by a tree around 6.30am on Friday 29 October.
Ben’s wife and daughters were trapped inside but were fortunately unharmed.
“The tree landed where I was standing 10 minutes earlier,” Ben said.
“My wife called to say a tree had fallen on the house. She was trapped in the bedroom.
“I drove back and ran down to where my daughters were bunkered in together for the night and they had a smashed window. So they and the greyhound crawled through the window and into my arms.”
A tree had penetrated the wall less than a metre above the girl’s heads.
“The dog is still very traumatised by loud bangs and windy days, which we all will be to some extent for a period of time,“ Ben said.
“Most of the time I’m ok but the other night a pine tree had dropped some branches onto the road and it got me spooked. It was all brought back by the sappy smell.“
The house will be demolished in January.
But the year has finished on a high for the Emerald SES, which moved into their new state of the art headquarters in November.
The new facility includes five drive through engine bays with room for 10 vehicles and trailers, administrative offices, a training room and a well being area for volunteers.
The new base will help accommodate the 30 new volunteers who have expressed interest in joining the crew in the new year.
This year, the wider community has supported the SES through various layers of support.
“We’ve had support from the community in funding to replace the vehicle crushed by the tree,“ Ben said.
Community groups organised raffles and community members brought care hampers and food to volunteers to keep them sustained through the storm.
But the true praise needs to go to the 50 Emerald SES volunteers, who range in age from 15 to 70, who are ready to donate their time 24 hours a day to help the community.
“What is amazing, is that during the June storm 99 per cent of our volunteers turned up at some stage to help,“ Ben said.
“And we have to thank employers because our volunteers were able to get time off work.
“It’s amazing, our volunteers take off their annual leave, which is their family time, to do SES days.
“We’re hoping to double our membership number from 50 to 100 in the 12 months. If that’s not in the truck, there’s plenty of other things people can do behind the scenes.“
