History

Rivers SES Unit, nee Rivers ES Brigade came in to being on 10^th February 1997 after the Australian Capital Territory Emergency Service (ACTES) was dissolved as a service and was reconstituted under the combined umbrella of ACT Bushfire and Emergency Services (BR F&ES), with Peter Lucas-Smith being the Director of the joint service.  North Unit and South Unit no longer existed with its members being dispersed to form smaller units around the ACT that were co-located with bushfire brigades.

Tony Graham was the first Commander of Rivers.  He had the following to say about the time that the ES first joined the bushfiries at Rivers Shed.

“I guess one of the things that really sticks in my mind when we first came over to Rivers was the warm welcome we received.  Our first training night at Rivers was on 6th February 1997. We had about 20 or so SES volunteers move from the Phillip SES Depot over to Rivers at this time. The Rivers bushfiries decided to put on a welcome for us, BBQ, beer etc and they really went out of their way to make us feel at home. One of their members, Peter Coble, who had previously been a member of the SES at Phillip, ran a whole lot of games that saw us pitted with and against the firies in a friendly and fun way. Some of the things Peter had us doing on the night made the game Twister look positively tame. I am sure there was more than the odd visit to a physio following the night following people rolling around on the cold concrete looking like uncoordinated spiders.

Whilst so many people went out of their way to make the SES volunteers welcome, it is through the extra efforts of people like Peter Coble, Simon Katz, Mike McColl and John Gale that saw such a harmonious relationship between the SES and the RFS volunteers develop. “

Please visit our Honour Board for a full listing of our Commanders, Deputy Commanders and Team Leaders from the beginning until now.

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Canberra Hospital Implosion  -  13th July, 1997

On the site where the National Museum of Australia now sits, there used to be a hospital, Royal Canberra Hospital.  This hospital was vacated in 1991, with a view to demolishing it in later years and making room for more modern facilities.

On the 13^th July 1997, Royal Canberra Hospital scheduled for demolition.  The government of the time decided to turn it in to a spectator event and widely advertised it as such. Over 100,000 people turned up to see this momentous event, by both lining the shores of Lake Burley Griffin and taking to watercraft.

The implosion did NOT go as planned. In fact many would say that it went wildly wrong. Instead of imploding, the buildings exploded, sending deadly shrapnel careening in to the crowd. One person who had been on the shore near Flynn Drive was killed instantly after being hit by shrapnel from the blast. Many others lives were threatened and sustained injuries.

Rivers ES Brigade assisted in this public event turned crime scene by assisting with the forensic marking of debris on Flynn Drive, around the site where Katie Bender was tragically killed by a high-powered projectile from the exploding building.

For Further Information on this emergency, please visit the following sites:

 

Thredbo Landslide  -  30th July, 1997

The first significant operation for Rivers ES Brigade, the forerunner of Rivers Unit, was the Thredbo Landslide, which happened just before midnight on 30^th July 1997.  For details on which Rivers ES members attended this emergency please go to our Roll Call.

For more information on this disaster, please visit the following Internet sites:

On the 14^th April 1999, a major storm hit Sydney, with major damage being caused by large hail stones.  According to Insurance Australia Group (IAG), the total cost of the Sydney Hailstorm was estimated at $1.7 billion. For details on Rivers involvement in this emergency, please look at our Roll Call.

For more information on this disaster, please visit the following Internet sites:

1999

Please see our Roll Call section for details of which Rivers members attended.

For more information on this event, please visit the following site:

http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/stories/s66621.htm

2000

In the evening of Wednesday, 11^th March 2000, the old Manuka Football Club was involved in an explosion that was sufficient to collapse the whole building.  Search and Rescue crews, including members from Rivers ES Brigade, were deployed to commence the search for any missing persons. One person was found deceased under the rubble.

For further information on this incident, please visit the following site:

http://www.esb.act.gov.au/usaraa/pdf%5C18.pdf

Sydney Olympic Torch Relay

2001

Rivers sent a crew up to Sydney to help out with some more major storm damage.  The crew staged firstly out of Mt Druitt SES and then moved to Hornsby SES.

Too see more information on who attended this incident, please visit our Roll Call section.

Things went fairly quiet after the Sydney storms for Rivers ES Brigade. Until….

2003

On 10^th January 2003, Rivers ES got called to cater for some fire crews up at Bullock’s Paddock Rd, who were fighting a couple of fires that were started by lightning strikes two days before (8^th Jan). 

The following morning we were asked to set up a heli base at Bull’s Head Pass, which is a picnic area up high in the mountains in the west of the ACT, to provide ground support for one or two helicopters that had been brought in to assist with aerial water-bombing. 

In the days that followed, the fire grew as did our heli base, which gradually became a full-blown staging area.  The sun disappeared behind a thick veil of smoke by about 15^th January.  More fire crews and more helicopters appeared at Bull’s Head.  We were now operating a smoky, hazy environment and the fire was apparently getting worse.

We continued with our heli base operations at Bull’s Head until 17^th January, when everything turned to custard in a big way.  In the afternoon, just after a delivery of 6 drums of Jet A-1 (aviation fuel) had been made, the call was made to evacuate the staging area – all emergency crews were told to leave immediately.  A large convoy made haste out of the mountains and pulled up along the roadside out the front of Uriarra Station, waiting until all vehicles were accounted for.

Thick columns of thick, grey smoke started coming over, with helicopters flying aggressively towards them.  Hundreds of cows from the surrounding paddocks all started to low – loudly.  They seemed to know that something very bad was about to happen.

It was at about 2:30am on 18^th January that the Commander from Rivers got a phone call from the Incident Controller requesting to activate the Unit to do some emergency catering for NSW fire crews, who had driven for hours to get to Canberra and had gone straight on to the fire ground and were in the area between Tharwa and Tidbinbilla.

The River crew set up shop in the courtyard of Tharwa Primary School and also drove a mountain of food and water out to Tidbinbilla Visitors Centre.  It was at about 10:30am when the Rivers crew noticed that a wall of thick, dark grey smoke was coming at them from both the south and the west.  The Rivers Commander got the crew to start packing the trailer up and meanwhile contacted the Bushfire Operations Officer and told them of the approaching fire.  The OPSO told them not to go back to their Shed (on the Cotter Road), although why this needed to happen he didn’t say.

The Rivers crew left Tharwa, and crossed Tharwa Bridge to stop on to the Canberra side of Naas River.  Then the fire hit on the far side of the river.  The crew stopped a TV news crew from crossing the bridge in to the Tharwa area for safety reasons.  And then the sky overhead turned dark grey, blocking out the sun completely.  At this time, the ES crew left the bridge and drove back towards Canberra.  As they were passing Lanyon Homestead, they realised that Lanyon, a beautiful historical property and homestead was literally in the line of fire.  And Saturday morning was always very popular as a tourist destination! There were no emergency crews in the area, so the Rivers crew went to the property and oversaw the evacuation of a wedding party and other visitors. The sky had now turned black and was pulsating with a bright orange and red glow.  Then a NSWRFS 4WD was involved in a road crash in just ahead of them and they stopped to help at that.  The police sent them away from the accident to help with the evacuation of hundreds of Weston Creek residents. 

Before proceeding to Weston Creek, the crew firstly stopped by the ACT Emergency Services Bureau (ESB) headquarters building at Curtin to let the incident management team that they were safe and get a situation report (SITREP).  Instead of being sent to help evacuate people, they were sent to North Curtin Oval, where a large staging area had been set up to wait for further direction. 

It was when they reached the staging area that they learnt that their base, Rivers Shed, had been overrun by fire.  The crew was told later on that 15 vehicles belonging to both ES and BF had been incinerated in the fire, 4 of those belonged to Rivers ES members.  According to the bushfiries who were there when it happened, it was like a bomb went off and a huge fireball raced through the place.

North Curtin Oval, where the SES was staged at that time is only about 3 km from Weston Creek, where most of the damage and destruction was occurring.  Despite the close proximity, the SES were not despatched to help residents to evacuate after all that.  During the peak of the disaster, 40 ES volunteers sat (and paced) at the staging area with their vehicles sitting idle in the car park, champing at the bit to be deployed. 

The incident controllers and management team, who were mainly BF & ES staff members were focussed almost exclusively on the bushfire fighting effort and simply did not have the resources or time to worry about ES for most of the day on the 18^th.  The ES vollies were trained to deal with a wide variety of situations and emergencies, and their community was being destroyed, but they were only used only sparingly later on in the day. This was a source of frustration and resentment for many ES volunteers at the time and for a long duration after the event.

After that day, Rivers ES became a storm damage crew.  Not including the 514 or so houses that were destroyed by fire, there were hundreds of other houses that were damaged by the tornados and gale-force wind generated by the fire storm.  Many residents in the Weston Creek and Tuggeranong areas reported seeing whole, full-grown gum trees being ripped up out of the ground and hurled through the air like a child’s toy.

Because of its work during the 2003 bushfires, Rivers Bushfire and Emergency Services Brigade was both  lucky and honoured to win four awards at the 2003 National Australia Bank National Volunteer Awards, including the National Volunteer Group of the Year.  For details on the award please visit: http://www.nab.com.au/About_Us/0,,39373,00.html.

For more information on who from Rivers ES attended this disaster please visit our Roll Call section.

For more information on this disaster, please visit the following websites:

Post 2003 Fire Changes to ESB Organisation Structure

Immediately after the 2003 fires everything in the ACT Emergency Services Bureau (ESB) and ACT’s emergency management arrangements changed dramatically.  ESB was dissolved was replaced by the ACT ESA (Emergency Services Authority), complete with brand new Commissioner.  The ACT Emergencies Act of 2004 was legislated. 

As part of the overall change in ACT emergency management direction, the ACT BF &ES was restructured, with each service once again becoming its own distinct and separate entity.  The ACT State Emergency Service (SES) and the ACT Rural Fire Service (RFS) were brought in to being.

It was under its own management structure, with ex SES volunteers now filling the management team positions, that the ACT SES emerged as a progressive, strategically focussed and forward thinking organisation.

2004

Very quiet after 2003...

2005

2006

On New Year’s Eve (31^st December 2006), just as many New Year’s Eve parties were getting underway, two severe storm cells (that were coloured  black on the Bureau of Meteorology’s Rain Radar) - one travelling up from the South and one travelling down from the North - collided over the Canberra area of South Tuggeranong.  The result was an intense and localised hail storm mainly over the suburbs of Gowrie, Richardson and Chisholm. 

Many SES volunteers ditched their New Year’s Even plans and chose to pull on their orange uniforms instead. 

SES Units from all over the ACT and surrounding NSW, descended on the area to attend to the many jobs that suddenly inundated the communication and call centres.  Upon arrival in the affected area, many SES veterans shook their heads at the damage, remarking that they had never seen anything like it before.

On Goldstein Ave in Gowrie, the Gowrie Shops car park and the street were buried in hail that was over a metre deep.  Cars that had been parked at the shops when the storm hit were buried up to their doors and were completely unable to move.

For more information on this disaster, please visit the following websites:

2007

Canberra ushered in the New Year with a massive hail storm, but Mother Nature apparently hadn’t stopped yet.  Apparently she likes symmetry, because on the 2^nd last day of summer in 2007, another black cell formed over Canberra City and dropped its massive load of hail. 

On the 8^th June 2007, as a storm was lashing the ACT, an even more terrifying and dramatic severe storm was unleashing  its fury on Sydney and the NSW Central Coast.  The worst of the storm was focussed on the Hunter Valley/ Newcastle region, causing major flooding, property damage and environmental damage.

At 6:30pm on the Friday night, Rivers was called in to be part of an ACT taskforce that would be leaving for the Hunter Valley before dawn the next morning. After arriving at their destination, Rivers members helped to evacuate many people in the area, as the rising waters threatened them.

Rivers sent members in each of the 5 ACT rotations.  To see a list of Rivers attendees at this emergency, please visit our Roll Call section.

Disclaimer: This site was developed by Rivers Unit volunteers. It is not a an official ACT Emergency Services Agency (ACT ESA) web site and some views shared in this web site are not necessarily the views of the ACT ESA. Information in this site should not be relied upon to deal with an emergency.

Site Last Updated: 01/10/2008