It has been a big three days for the ACTSES and for Rivers Unit! Since the rain started falling on Friday, just Rivers Unit has put in approximately 160 operational field hours.  Even as this article is being written, a Rivers crew is out in the field, dealing with water damage after another short, sharp storm hit this afternoon.

 

On Saturday, the SWD training day, became an on-the-job training exercise, with 9 members spending the day out attending to real jobs.  After much chopping and changing through Saturday evening, SES management finally decided to stand up a crew from Rivers at 0730h yesterday morning.  Given that the ACTSES ended up receiving over 200 jobs for yesterday alone, it was a very wise move! 

 

It proved to be a very wet Sunday for all of the crews out in the field, with the rain not stopping until about 3pm.  All of the jobs yesterday were nearly identical - water getting in through a roof via a gap between the roof and some kind of add-on (flue, skylight, solar panels etc).  Every job seemed to involve a ladder, two volunteers and a silicon gun! The upside to this is that they were relatively quick jobs and we got through a few of them.

 

Not too long after Rivers stood up the first crew at about 0900h, we were being asked for a second crew.  After a soggy day on roofs, the first crew stood down at about 1800h and the 2nd crew did the same at about 1930h after all of the jobs were cleared.  It was a long day for some and very long weekend for others!

 

The RFS was activated yesterday to lend a hand as well.  Between the SES, RFS and Fire Brigade, we managed to clear over 430 jobs between Saturday and Monday, which is no mean feat!  Good work everybody!