September 19, 2024 • 12 mins
At the beginning of September, a series of strong cold fronts brought a dangerous mix of damaging to destructive winds, heavy rain, flooding and snowfalls to Tasmania.
The severe weather caused widespread power outages, leaving thousands of homes and businesses in the dark.
During this time, the Tasmania State Emergency Service received 1,442 calls and responded to 900 incidents.
In this episode of iHeart Tassie, we learn about the importance of our SES volunteers, and how you can get involved.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
My Heart.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
At the beginning of September, a series of cold fronts
brought a dangerous mix of damaging to destructive winds, heavy rain, flooding,
and snowfall to Tasmania. The severe weather caused widespread power outages,
leaving thousands of homes and businesses without power for extended periods.
During this time, the Tasmania State Emergency Service received one
(00:23):
four hundred and forty two calls and responded to nine
hundred incidents. I'm britt Aileen and in this episode of
My Heart Tazy, we'll learn about our SEES volunteers and
how they help us out in times of crisis.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
My Heart, I think for me personally, the experience of
just seeing so many people out there trying to find us,
and you know, we would have not come back if
the Emergency Services hadn't found us, So we were in
a pretty dull situation.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
That's Leanne Morrison from the SEES Incident Management Unit in Lunceston.
In nineteen seventy six, the Tasmanian Parliament passed the Emergency
Services Act, which established the Tasmanian SEES as we know
it today, made up of local volunteers from all walks
of life. The service responds to the needs of our
communities in times of crisis. Cheryl Aims is the acting
(01:16):
Assistant Director of Operations and Resources Tasmania.
Speaker 4 (01:19):
FIS is a relatively small emergency service that we're renowned
for really punising above our weight in many respects. So
we've got seven currencies, seven hundred and fourteen volunteers statewide
and pretty much all FBus units were involved in this
(01:40):
recent severe weather response.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Leanne is one of them. During the recent severe weather events,
she spent her time answering incoming calls for assistance.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
We had a lot of calls to do with trees
coming down over people's driveways and on roads and on
everything including houses. I spoke to a couple of people
who had large trees fall on the house. I know
we had a lot of windows blown out. When we
(02:11):
finished up on the Tuesday, we could look at the
stats of how many different types of jobs there were,
but I would say that roof damage and trees were
the biggest ones.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
While over on the West Coast, Brian Nis got the
call up. He's an electrician living and working in Queenstown,
but when he's not earning a living as a sparky.
He gives his time to the local SES unit.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
I was previously the deputy unit manager a Winyard for
seven years. I was part of Windyards for fifteen years.
I had a change of job and moved to the
West Coast and sold going seven years and I'm decided
I would join the game.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
Brian was on the ground during the recent storms working
with a small local team to help keep the community safe.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
First call was a tree had taken out of power
line near a house that we cleaned up and made safe.
Then we had a shackdown at Granville Harbor that had
the wall blown off into another shack and we secured
that we had an awful lot of trees on the
roads that we had to remove, flooding and strawn. A
(03:25):
few of the buildings there were almost flooded, so we
had to hand bag up make sure they were protected
from the weather. Yet, with a lot of lots of
different things over that weekend, that amounted to quite quite
a long weekend.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
Volunteer numbers are low on the West Coast, something Brian
attributes to the number of organizations in the area that
rely on community members to help out.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
The number of people here versus how many volunteers they
need makes it really hard. I think that I think
that anyone should give it a go. I actually really
think that that enjoy it. There's so much you do.
It's such a big variety of things. It's all paid for,
(04:15):
training for anything that you need to learn. Yeah, I
don't know how to encourage people more to come. That's
something that I'm trying to work out at the moment,
but I think it is definitely well worth it.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
He says. It's a good boost for your resume too.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
If I can get people even to join just for
that fact, it will be great.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
Coming up on aheart tasy, we'll take a look at
how you could become an SEES volunteer and exactly what
it is they're looking for.
Speaker 3 (04:43):
I heard as he.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
Ihard as he.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
It was a personal experience with the SEES that encouraged
Leanne Morrison to get involved.
Speaker 3 (04:54):
Mine's probably a bit different to a lot of people in.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
That I've been a teacher for.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
More years than I wish to remember. I made it
in geography. I've always been very interested in natural disasters
and you know, sort of seeing how they work and
how it affects people. But In two thousand and seven,
my husband and I unfortunately went missing down on the
(05:22):
West coast for five days a little place called the
Rocky River between Carina and Savage River, and we had
when we were finally pulled out by the Westpac helicopter,
we found that there had been up to fifty SEES
search and rescue volunteers, police out looking for us, and
(05:47):
we were just so overwhelmed and grateful that they did that.
At that stage, I hadn't thought about joining SEES. I
didn't really know a lot about them, apart from perhaps
search and rescue side of things. But a few years later,
unfortunately my husband passed away and my daughter suggested that
(06:09):
I needed to join something, and I looked around at
different organizations and volunteering roles and suddenly came up with
the idea of maybe SEES these people like me as well.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
Cheryl Aims, acting Assistant Director of Operations and Resources, says,
the SEES is always open to recruiting more volunteers across
our state. Despite asi's small population, the volunteers are leading
the nation in the number of hours collectively devoted to
the service.
Speaker 4 (06:36):
We can always always happily accept new volunteers. It's got
a lot to do with demographics in Tasmania as well.
I suppose that, you know, in terms of volunteer recruitment
and retention because of our aging population, you know, the
demands on people for their time in general due to
(06:58):
employment requirements, family commitments and the like. You know, the
volunteer sector in Tasmania and with this state has always
always been you know, leading in terms of the number
of hours that we collectively devote to volunteering in it
(07:18):
every year. But effectively what the situation is, you know,
we're very very conscious that there's a great deal of
demand for volunteers across emergency services they're not for profit
sector and pretty much in every every sector across the
Tasmanian community. So this is why you know, as an organization,
(07:41):
we we focus on the safety of our people. When
you've become an a sea volunteer, you are equipped with
the appropriate protective clothing and protective equipment. You know, you
undergo an induction into the organization. You seen go through
a theory of training to make sure that you're fully
(08:03):
trained and fully equipped for the tasks that you undertake.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
Lean says there's always room for people who are keen
to help out.
Speaker 3 (08:09):
I look around my colleagues and each and every one
of them is passionate as well, you know, for different reasons.
We just love being able to do our bit to
help the community, and we are constantly learning sees and
as via servers are very good with training us up
(08:29):
for different things. Yeah, definitely my background, with my interest
in geography and natural disasters. You know, I get excited
when there's a storm coming in the same way that
the fires get excited when the fire breaks out. You know,
they want to get in and do something and help people.
Sometimes we have a lot of events come up that
(08:51):
where the forecast is really bad and then it misses
the north of the state or whatever, and you know
you can sort of around put your plans on hold
and nothing happens. But I think for me personally, the
experience of just seeing so many people out there trying
(09:12):
to find us, and you know, we would have not
come back if the emergency services hadn't found us, So
we were in a prettyde situation.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
She chose to sign up in the hope that she
may become part of a social network sharing a passion
for helping others well.
Speaker 3 (09:29):
I think the other thing for me is that after
my husband passed away, I needed another social outlet and
the good friends that I've made, like really close friends,
and the camaraderie not just within the unit, but you know,
you meet people from other units around the state. We're
(09:51):
often working with tas fire personnel, and you get to
know all those people and it's just opened up a
whole new.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
World for me.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
And if you want to get involved, pretty easy to
sign up.
Speaker 3 (10:01):
We are recruiting on a regular basis, and we've had
some new members into our team and the other teams
that are based in lon system. I think we've had
about three intakes this year, and I assume that there
may be another one coming up. But certainly for anyone
that's interested, I know you can go to the sex website,
(10:23):
for example, and I feel in an expression of interest form,
which is exactly what I did, and they contact me
back and said, we'll let you know when the next
intake's happening.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
Cheryl says there are a number of different ways for
people to help out, so.
Speaker 4 (10:39):
Not every volunteer, for instance, wants to or is involved
in road crash rescue or motivacle accident response. You know,
we've got we're just about to launch a pilot program
actually for community engagement volunteers where if you're not keen,
or if you're not physically able to climb on route example,
(11:01):
during response, you can still meaningfully contribute by engaging with
your local community to educate the community about how to
prepare for emergency flood storms and with our colleagues from
TFF in a bushfight context. So that community engagement is
absolutely critical and in many ways just as important as
(11:25):
you know, a road crash rescue or storm respond It's
really opening up more opportunities for people to engage as
an SES volunteer to the level that they want to
or that they can.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
So even if you think you might be too small,
too weak, or just too inexperienced, Brian Nis from the
Queenstown Sees says, they can always find a role that fits.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
It doesn't matter what your fitness level is or what
your age is or anything like that, because you can
find a role for each individual. If you're afraid to
climb up on route, then you can do traffic control
or you can you know, there's always a role that
(12:11):
you can find for people that doesn't have to be.
You don't have to be at your peak fitness or
your peak age or anything like that.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
And that's it for this week's episode of iHeart Tazzy.
You can find previous editions in our podcast feed. I'm
British Ailen. Thanks for your company, My heart Sassy
My Heart.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
At the beginning of September, a series of cold fronts
brought a dangerous mix of damaging to destructive winds, heavy rain, flooding,
and snowfall to Tasmania. The severe weather caused widespread power outages,
leaving thousands of homes and businesses without power for extended periods.
During this time, the Tasmania State Emergency Service received one
(00:23):
four hundred and forty two calls and responded to nine
hundred incidents. I'm britt Aileen and in this episode of
My Heart Tazy, we'll learn about our SEES volunteers and
how they help us out in times of crisis.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
My Heart, I think for me personally, the experience of
just seeing so many people out there trying to find us,
and you know, we would have not come back if
the Emergency Services hadn't found us, So we were in
a pretty dull situation.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
That's Leanne Morrison from the SEES Incident Management Unit in Lunceston.
In nineteen seventy six, the Tasmanian Parliament passed the Emergency
Services Act, which established the Tasmanian SEES as we know
it today, made up of local volunteers from all walks
of life. The service responds to the needs of our
communities in times of crisis. Cheryl Aims is the acting
(01:16):
Assistant Director of Operations and Resources Tasmania.
Speaker 4 (01:19):
FIS is a relatively small emergency service that we're renowned
for really punising above our weight in many respects. So
we've got seven currencies, seven hundred and fourteen volunteers statewide
and pretty much all FBus units were involved in this
(01:40):
recent severe weather response.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Leanne is one of them. During the recent severe weather events,
she spent her time answering incoming calls for assistance.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
We had a lot of calls to do with trees
coming down over people's driveways and on roads and on
everything including houses. I spoke to a couple of people
who had large trees fall on the house. I know
we had a lot of windows blown out. When we
(02:11):
finished up on the Tuesday, we could look at the
stats of how many different types of jobs there were,
but I would say that roof damage and trees were
the biggest ones.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
While over on the West Coast, Brian Nis got the
call up. He's an electrician living and working in Queenstown,
but when he's not earning a living as a sparky.
He gives his time to the local SES unit.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
I was previously the deputy unit manager a Winyard for
seven years. I was part of Windyards for fifteen years.
I had a change of job and moved to the
West Coast and sold going seven years and I'm decided
I would join the game.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
Brian was on the ground during the recent storms working
with a small local team to help keep the community safe.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
First call was a tree had taken out of power
line near a house that we cleaned up and made safe.
Then we had a shackdown at Granville Harbor that had
the wall blown off into another shack and we secured
that we had an awful lot of trees on the
roads that we had to remove, flooding and strawn. A
(03:25):
few of the buildings there were almost flooded, so we
had to hand bag up make sure they were protected
from the weather. Yet, with a lot of lots of
different things over that weekend, that amounted to quite quite
a long weekend.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
Volunteer numbers are low on the West Coast, something Brian
attributes to the number of organizations in the area that
rely on community members to help out.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
The number of people here versus how many volunteers they
need makes it really hard. I think that I think
that anyone should give it a go. I actually really
think that that enjoy it. There's so much you do.
It's such a big variety of things. It's all paid for,
(04:15):
training for anything that you need to learn. Yeah, I
don't know how to encourage people more to come. That's
something that I'm trying to work out at the moment,
but I think it is definitely well worth it.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
He says. It's a good boost for your resume too.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
If I can get people even to join just for
that fact, it will be great.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
Coming up on aheart tasy, we'll take a look at
how you could become an SEES volunteer and exactly what
it is they're looking for.
Speaker 3 (04:43):
I heard as he.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
Ihard as he.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
It was a personal experience with the SEES that encouraged
Leanne Morrison to get involved.
Speaker 3 (04:54):
Mine's probably a bit different to a lot of people in.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
That I've been a teacher for.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
More years than I wish to remember. I made it
in geography. I've always been very interested in natural disasters
and you know, sort of seeing how they work and
how it affects people. But In two thousand and seven,
my husband and I unfortunately went missing down on the
(05:22):
West coast for five days a little place called the
Rocky River between Carina and Savage River, and we had
when we were finally pulled out by the Westpac helicopter,
we found that there had been up to fifty SEES
search and rescue volunteers, police out looking for us, and
(05:47):
we were just so overwhelmed and grateful that they did that.
At that stage, I hadn't thought about joining SEES. I
didn't really know a lot about them, apart from perhaps
search and rescue side of things. But a few years later,
unfortunately my husband passed away and my daughter suggested that
(06:09):
I needed to join something, and I looked around at
different organizations and volunteering roles and suddenly came up with
the idea of maybe SEES these people like me as well.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
Cheryl Aims, acting Assistant Director of Operations and Resources, says,
the SEES is always open to recruiting more volunteers across
our state. Despite asi's small population, the volunteers are leading
the nation in the number of hours collectively devoted to
the service.
Speaker 4 (06:36):
We can always always happily accept new volunteers. It's got
a lot to do with demographics in Tasmania as well.
I suppose that, you know, in terms of volunteer recruitment
and retention because of our aging population, you know, the
demands on people for their time in general due to
(06:58):
employment requirements, family commitments and the like. You know, the
volunteer sector in Tasmania and with this state has always
always been you know, leading in terms of the number
of hours that we collectively devote to volunteering in it
(07:18):
every year. But effectively what the situation is, you know,
we're very very conscious that there's a great deal of
demand for volunteers across emergency services they're not for profit
sector and pretty much in every every sector across the
Tasmanian community. So this is why you know, as an organization,
(07:41):
we we focus on the safety of our people. When
you've become an a sea volunteer, you are equipped with
the appropriate protective clothing and protective equipment. You know, you
undergo an induction into the organization. You seen go through
a theory of training to make sure that you're fully
(08:03):
trained and fully equipped for the tasks that you undertake.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
Lean says there's always room for people who are keen
to help out.
Speaker 3 (08:09):
I look around my colleagues and each and every one
of them is passionate as well, you know, for different reasons.
We just love being able to do our bit to
help the community, and we are constantly learning sees and
as via servers are very good with training us up
(08:29):
for different things. Yeah, definitely my background, with my interest
in geography and natural disasters. You know, I get excited
when there's a storm coming in the same way that
the fires get excited when the fire breaks out. You know,
they want to get in and do something and help people.
Sometimes we have a lot of events come up that
(08:51):
where the forecast is really bad and then it misses
the north of the state or whatever, and you know
you can sort of around put your plans on hold
and nothing happens. But I think for me personally, the
experience of just seeing so many people out there trying
(09:12):
to find us, and you know, we would have not
come back if the emergency services hadn't found us, So
we were in a prettyde situation.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
She chose to sign up in the hope that she
may become part of a social network sharing a passion
for helping others well.
Speaker 3 (09:29):
I think the other thing for me is that after
my husband passed away, I needed another social outlet and
the good friends that I've made, like really close friends,
and the camaraderie not just within the unit, but you know,
you meet people from other units around the state. We're
(09:51):
often working with tas fire personnel, and you get to
know all those people and it's just opened up a
whole new.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
World for me.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
And if you want to get involved, pretty easy to
sign up.
Speaker 3 (10:01):
We are recruiting on a regular basis, and we've had
some new members into our team and the other teams
that are based in lon system. I think we've had
about three intakes this year, and I assume that there
may be another one coming up. But certainly for anyone
that's interested, I know you can go to the sex website,
(10:23):
for example, and I feel in an expression of interest form,
which is exactly what I did, and they contact me
back and said, we'll let you know when the next
intake's happening.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
Cheryl says there are a number of different ways for
people to help out, so.
Speaker 4 (10:39):
Not every volunteer, for instance, wants to or is involved
in road crash rescue or motivacle accident response. You know,
we've got we're just about to launch a pilot program
actually for community engagement volunteers where if you're not keen,
or if you're not physically able to climb on route example,
(11:01):
during response, you can still meaningfully contribute by engaging with
your local community to educate the community about how to
prepare for emergency flood storms and with our colleagues from
TFF in a bushfight context. So that community engagement is
absolutely critical and in many ways just as important as
(11:25):
you know, a road crash rescue or storm respond It's
really opening up more opportunities for people to engage as
an SES volunteer to the level that they want to
or that they can.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
So even if you think you might be too small,
too weak, or just too inexperienced, Brian Nis from the
Queenstown Sees says, they can always find a role that fits.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
It doesn't matter what your fitness level is or what
your age is or anything like that, because you can
find a role for each individual. If you're afraid to
climb up on route, then you can do traffic control
or you can you know, there's always a role that
(12:11):
you can find for people that doesn't have to be.
You don't have to be at your peak fitness or
your peak age or anything like that.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
And that's it for this week's episode of iHeart Tazzy.
You can find previous editions in our podcast feed. I'm
British Ailen. Thanks for your company, My heart Sassy
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