By Kirra Livingstone
HINTERLAND SES crews have been working tirelessly in the aftermath of ex-Tropical Cyclone Alfred, which swept through the region last weekend (March 7-8).
SES Sunshine Coast Unit local controller, Brendan Casement, said his team was kept busy with dozens of callouts both before and after Alfred had crossed the coast.
“In the Beerwah area we had 80 requests for assistance in our system, and another 41 in the Maleny area,” he said.
“The initial first four days was all preparation work, in the Beerwah area alone there was 30,000 sandbags given out.
“We were also seeing a lot of requests for leaking roofs and trees which have fallen down across driveways and houses.”
Despite most evacuations taking place in Nambour, there were some local evacuations.
“There was a request out at Mooloolah Valley, we had to get the general nursing staff to one of their medical facilities there,” Mr Casement said.
Maleny SES acting deputy group leader, Jared Ashcroft, said in the days leading up to the cyclone, they supplied more than 1,500 sandbags to residents.
Once the floods hit, Mr Ashcroft said it was a long and challenging time for volunteers. “On Monday, myself and the crew had about a 14-hour day doing jobs and completing rescues,” he said.
“The challenging part was because of the roads that were flooded, we couldn’t access any of the properties that we needed to get to until water receded.
“We are now back to our normal routine, and are able to respond to call outs since the majority of our jobs have now closed.”
Mr Casement said that because the cyclone didn’t directly hit the Sunshine Coast, the damage was less severe than anticipated.
“We were prepared for worst case scenario, so when Alfred decided to change tracks and go south, we saw less requests than we were expecting,” he said.
“We are very lucky we weren’t in that situation, if it hit the north of Maroochydore, we would be in the same situation as NSW and the Gold Coast.”
Mr Ashcroft also thanked volunteers for giving up their time and businesses for donating food and supplies to SES crews.
