Unit History - Year 2005 until Today

In January 2005 the Unit hosted several training sessions with other SES Units in road crash rescue. The Nunawading and Northcote Units sent crews over for some training with the Jaws of Life and car wrecks. This inter-unit training was well received and of great benefit to all Units involved.

We received a late Christmas present from our State HQ in the form of a battery powered omni-tool. This portable, battery powered "Jaws of Life" will be a valuable addition to our wide range of rescue equipment for crash rescue. We chopped up four car wrecks for practice in January using the new tool in conjunction with the other HURST equipment.

A steady stream of storm and flooding calls for assistance kept us busy but nothing could prepare us for "Cyclone Victoria" that hit our Unit in early Feb 2005. In the space of 24 hours our Unit received well over 380 calls for help with trees through roofs, onto cars, over roads and severe flooding of the Diamond Creek caused huge problems to residences and businesses along the flood plains

A number of rescues of persons stranded in rising flood waters happened during the storm with the Police Air Wing, Police Search and Rescue, Doncaster SES with their IRB's and our Unit members attending to assist. Luckily all these people were rescued with no injuries. The Diamond Creek was almost 100m wide in some places. Several bridges in Diamond Creek and Eltham were closed due to flooding.

The Unit is very proud of our response to all these storm and flooding calls remaining active with crews in the field for close to three days continuously. We received help from several other SES Units such as Wodonga and Bacchus Marsh, Upper Yarra and a few CFA crews from Kinglake and St. Andrews. The shear number of calls during this period is significant as we only usually attend about 250-300 calls per year in total! Lots of photos during this event can be found here.

The future looks bright for the unit with increasing expertise, new equipment, respect and public awareness. Increased membership will allow greater specialisation of roles and a reduction in pressure on existing members.