By Corey Everitt
Victorian SES and CFA members bravely spent their New Years deployed to South East Queensland to help with the vital relief efforts for communities affected by devastating floods.
The deployment was a first-time joint task force of SES and CFA together. It saw 40 CFA and 43 SES personnel from all over the State.
The task force was transported to the area of Helensvale near the Gold Coast to take on temporary repairs and removal of trees and debris. They operated for 5 days from December 30, spending 2 days traveling and 3 days in relief efforts.
Group Officer for Westernport, David Breadmore was the CFA’s Taskforce Commander. This is not his first deployment, but no experience could mitigate the shock of what these communities are going through.
“This isn’t my first, I was a part of the deployment for floods on the Murray last year. I don’t think I’ve seen devastation like that before,” Mr Breadmore said.
“There is not a street that wasn’t affected, every park, street, farmland was littered with trees everywhere.”
Christmas Day and Boxing saw severe storms throughout the east coast of Australia, in South East Queensland 7 people have died in the tragic events that are said to potentially result in damage costing in the billions.
Thousands were without power for days with a reported 900 power lines damaged.
The severe weather did not end, Mr Breadmore’s taskforce saw this first hand.
“We were hit with a significant weather event while we were there, there was an emergency broadcast which forced us to stand down and take shelter,” Mr Breadmore said.
“Rivers would rise and fall in moments, we had 200ml of rain in an hour.”
Despite the tough and vital work in a devastated community, Mr Breadmore was heartened to see residents stay strong.
“The thing which stood out to me was the resilience and strength of the community up there who had been without power since Christmas, had debris through their property,” Mr Breadmore said.
“With disasters you often feel there can be resentment, due to a sense that the response wasn’t good enough or too slow. But we were welcomed, everyone would come back in the truck and say they were all great to work with.”
While working in a joint taskforce with the SES, a rare kind of deployment, was an eye opening and effective experience.
“Working alongside the SES, we of course were learning from them as we went, but also found ourselves feeling a great deal of respect for them,” Mr Breadmore said.
“It was a first, it was certainly a unique taskforce and it proved to be a resounding success and will definitely happen again in the future.”
Ultimately, with communities going through hardship through a time when they should be together and safe, Mr Breadmore is proud of his colleagues’ efforts in helping them.
“It was hard to deploy at this time of year, asking people to miss their New Year celebration. All in 24 hours notice, these guys had difficult circumstances, but they did an excellent job,” Mr Breadmore said.
