Maggi Barnard

 

Parkes has been turned into base camp as emergency services in NSW are facing the largest flood operation in the state’s history. 

By Wednesday over 200 people had been rescued from floodwater and the State Emergency Service received more than 900 calls for help. 

In addition to emergency services, the ADF has been based in town for about two weeks, while international volunteers arrived this week to assist with a flood rescue for the first time. A team of 12 from Fire and Emergency New Zealand arrived in Parkes on Tuesday, while another team of 12 from Singapore arrived yesterday. 

Pioneer Oval is now a basecamp for the emergency services with a capacity of 100 personnel and includes a decontamination centre where crews can decontaminate upon return from the field. Northparkes Oval is being used as a temporary helicopter landing pad. 

Ken Murphy, SES Senior Manager Capability and Incident Controller for the Lachlan Valley, said the base camp had a capacity to expand to 150 people, and would stay as long as the emergency services were operational in the area. 

He said the New Zealand team had specialist skills around logistics management, resource management, planning and intel, while the Singapore team specialised in swift water rescue. A US team with specialist capability is also expected to join the operation. 

Acting Prime Minister Richard Marles toured the flood affected Central West on Wednesday and met the New Zealand team at the SES office in Parkes. “We are really grateful for your assistance. My defence counterpart in NZ sent me a text message. Your government is very proud of the service you are providing to us.” 

Ken said it was amazing how the team had hit the ground running not knowing the systems. He said the international teams would be staying for as long as they were needed. “We have ongoing arrangements to roll them over. This would allow us really good opportunities to share ideas and to look at policies and procedures and evaluate equipment, and help us with fatigue management for our crews.” 

Following the flood event in Parkes on Monday, Ken said the rapid damage assessment teams were still busy getting to all the affected homes and would become part of moving towards the recovery phase. 

The main focus was on Forbes, Condobolin and areas downstream in preparing for the flood and responding and working with the community. 

“Our biggest message to the public is to comply with evacuation warnings, to be prepared when an evacuation order was issued, to have an evacuation kit ready with all the essential items, to consider pets and neighbours.” He also said people should under no circumstance enter flood water. 

It is probably the worst start to a Monday you can imagine, but for many Parkes the nightmare became reality when they woke in the morning with water running through their homes.

“We had ten minutes to get out as the house was filling up so fast,” said David Thompson, who lives in Billabong Crescent.

His mum Bev said she heard the dog barking incessantly but tried to ignore it. “David eventually got up and found the back veranda covered in water.” Although they can see the creek from their home, Bev said it had never ever even reached a bank more than 10m from the house.

“When I opened my bedroom door, water was coming in. I only had time to grab a clean pair of pants and a top as I was still in my nighty.” She said by the time they left the house the water was already knee deep.

Residents gathered at the top of Military Road where there was a dry patch until the water started receding later in the morning.

On Tuesday morning her house was a beehive of activity as the ‘volunteer army of angels’ and the Parkes Fire & Rescue 417 team had come to help clean up. Every piece of furniture, clothing and household item were stacked outside on the lawn as volunteers started washing mud and debris from the house.

Still reeling from the shock of the previous day, Bev was extremely grateful for the love and kindness shown by the community.

A few blocks away in Kelly Road the destruction was even worse with one house in particular that appeared to have been hit by the ‘eye’ of the flood.

Paul Lovett said when he woke up and looked outside he saw water coming to his house. “I tried to push back on my front door from the inside but could not hold it for very long. It was like a torrent running right through the house, eight bricks deep.”

On Tuesday the volunteer army under the leadership of Dooley Thomson carted off truckloads of furniture and household items that had been damaged. 

“The worst of all is we had absolutely no warning,” said Paul looking out over his mud covered garden and brown pool. “I don’t even have flood insurance because this area has never been classified as a flood zone.”

Dooley, who lives nearby in Military Road, said he started getting calls from people for help on Monday. He could not believe what had happened and put out a call on social media for volunteers to help with the clean-up from Tuesday.

On Wednesday he had again gathered an ‘army’ and headed off to Eugowra where the flood destruction was a much bigger disaster.