The Condobolin SES Unit held a “Better Together” BBQ on Saturday 25 February thanking the members from the Unit, partner agencies, businesses and Lachlan Shire Council who stepped up to assist with the 2022 record breaking flood event in Condobolin and surrounding areas.
West Wyalong and Lake Cargelligo SES Units were also invited with 3 members from West Wyalong making the trip to attend the evening.
Condobolin Unit Commander, Susan Bennett, thanked everyone for the tremendous contributions to the defence of the town and surrounding areas and for ongoing assistance with isolations and recovery effort since the water receded.
“None of us expected to face record breaking levels of water brought on by storms, flash flooding, already high river levels and massive water releases from Wyangala Dam. We were working with an environment nobody in recorded history has had to deal with and there was nothing to prepare us for the volume and speed of water that inundated us. Sadly, there were properties that were inundated and this weighed heavily on all involved but despite some challenging flood rescues we did not lose a life and our teams did their very best to ensure the safety of people, stock and property to the best of our ability with the resources we had on hand.
During the peak we received donations of home cooked cakes, biscuits, boxes of fresh fruit, sandwiches and beverages which we really appreciated, and we thank the community for their contributions to both our welfare and to the township when it was needed.
Special thanks go to our Lachlan Shire Council team who worked tirelessly alongside us during the event and who are now working to repair the badly damaged road system around the Shire which was impacted by storms and riverine flooding, in some cases for almost 8 of the 12 months to December 2022.
It would be remiss of me not to publicly thank the Rapid Relief Team AU and its members from Condobolin, Lake Cargelligo, Forbes, Parkes, Orange, Lithgow and Sydney to name a few, for their ongoing support to our Units here in the Central West and indeed all across NSW. They provided food hampers, meals, sand, sandbags, signage, volunteers and equipment, often at short notice, and were there for us when the going got tough.”
The Condobolin Unit responded to 536 flood related requests from September to December with many more jobs including aerial resupply, evacuations, medical transportation, welfare checks, sandbagging, rebuilding of levees and stock relocations not included in this tally. Following the passing of the peak many more clean up jobs were received which were attended to by joint teams from RFS, Fire & Rescue, members of the Armed Forces and SES crews with international support from New Zealand and Singapore across the Central West, Far West and Riverina areas.
Contributed.