Orange army leader reflects on a decade after Yasi disaster
Jan Lindbergs can still remember in detail the extent of Cyclone Yasi’s destruction that steeled her will to continue volunteering
Mackay
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Jan Lindbergs had never seen rain like it.
A relentless wall of water teeming down so hard it saturated everything, even the inside of the State Emergency Service dual cab ute that led a response convoy from Mackay to Townsville a week after Tropical Cyclone Yasi crossed the coast on February 3, 2011.
An experience the SES Mackay Regional Unit deputy local controller north will never forget but one that has forged her will to continue volunteering.
Mrs Lindbergs did two deployments to help clean up and rebuild after Yasi crossed; first to Ingham and Abergowrie, then on to Cardwell.
It was an experience steeped in lessons on the human will to rebuild but also in solidifying the place SES crews have in the hearts of Queenslanders.
A lot has changed in the SES since the destructive category five storm made landfall, its more than 600km wide system engulfing the sprawling state and her 295km/h winds flattening virtually everything in her path.
In Abergowrie, a small community northwest of Ingham, Mrs Lindbergs found hope and hardiness among residents.
"Because they had no town water they were choppering in a pallet of bottled water a day just for the residents and the SES to drink," she recalled.
Photographs: Cardwell’s 10-year anniversary of Tropical Cyclone Yasi
"They couldn't, because of the weather, get the barges in with the community foodstuffs.
"That took another week before that could get there. There were no showers, no baths, no washing of clothes or anything like that. They were apologising the whole time about how they smelt.
"And we said, 'don't worry about it, by the end of the day, we'll all smell the same'."
Mrs Lindbergs and her team spent a week in the cyclone ravaged community, driving up each day from Townsville, working 12-hour days in conditions she had never before experienced.
"The conditions we were working in were pouring rain, and it's not the rain that people think of as rain," she said.
"We're talking torrential, relentless rain that comes down in waves or sheets of water.
"Inside the car with the humidity and all that rain, it was like it was raining inside the car; the condensation … it was just dripping off the ceiling and here I am trying to do paperwork …"
It was a glimmer of preparation for Mrs Lindbergs's second deployment to Cardwell, a town much harder hit, cut off, isolated but again, resilient.
"(Cardwell) was total devastation. There were not many houses that either weren't totally damaged or partially damaged," she recalled.
"There was a couple that didn't have any damage at all which was remarkable. There were roofs missing, walls missing, windows missing.
"The sand build up on the esplanade on the beach front, which is the main road to go through town, they had to get the big dozers in so you could actually get in there because it was just piled high because of the storm surge."
Mrs Lindbergs and her unit was tasked with building a shelter for the Emergency Management Queensland response team, to secure the command centre set up in a caravan wedged between two shipping containers.
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"We sent the chainsaw guys out, they chopped down some small trees that could fit across and myself and one of the members from Mirani - we were cadet leaders as well - knew how to do lashings so we lashed all the trees together so a taro could be put up so we had a fairly dry area to do briefings and debriefings each day," she said.
"It rained more in Cardwell than it did in Abergowrie.
"There was one place we went to, we stood under the house. It was bucketing down and we went to stand under the house but it was cleaner to stand outside because of all the possum and rats and all that stuff in the ceiling that got full of water.
"It was like a tea coming down through the floorboards. It was cleaner to stay out in the rain than to try and get out of it."
Cyclone Yasi - Overnight and aftermath
Mrs Lindbergs took heart from the spirit of residents amid the depths of the destruction. The sheer scale of the disaster was almost a catalyst for changing attitudes towards the SES, the trust in the volunteers and the help they would render.
It is a shift in attitude from the public towards crews Mrs Lindbergs has watched continually change and grow.
"It's like with fires, people like to see the rural fire and the red trucks arrive because it is a relief," she said.
"A lot of people think SES is just numbers game, lots of people to put on the ground and in one sense it is, but in another sense, we have the training and we have the skills.
"And sometimes people forget (we) are a skilled volunteer service. We might not get paid but we act professionally and that's the whole thing.
"We show up, we're there to help, we're not there to have a party."
Mrs Lindbergs is confident Queenslanders know and recognise the value of the SES, and the trust they instil in the orange is a treasured part of the job.
Crews are met by people going through three different stages when they arrive to help.
"You could meet someone who is angry, someone who is upset and crying, someone who is just happy to see you," she said.
"And it is levels of that when you arrive. If someone is really angry that you haven't been here when they wanted you to be here, just by talking to them for a couple of minutes, they have calmed down.
"And then their anger goes, and it becomes relief."
Pictures: Escaping Cyclone Yasi
Yasi's impact is the stuff of Queensland lore, with the scale of her might and destructive path etched into residents' minds in a year of extraordinary weather.
Reflecting on her deployment a decade on, Mrs Lindbergs said the SES had changed over the years not least of which was the statewide structure in emergency response.
The SES, once under Emergency Management Queensland, now falls under the Queensland Fire and Emergency Services banner and has commissioners.
Training and accreditation has become a priority with volunteers upskilling and a zero-harm objective in the field.
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"There has been a lot of changes in the 13 years I've been in and there's a lot of changes still to come so you've got to be adaptable. Some of the old guard weren't adaptable and couldn't adapt, didn't like the changes so they left," Mrs Lindbergs said.
"Some of the new people coming in think it's just a social outing so they have to be re-educated to think of it differently."
But the overarching change has been in Queenslanders' faith that the SES will show up.
"Because of a lot of the publicity, if you need assistance, ring 132 500," she said.
"It has been pushed Queensland wide pretty heavy and because of that, they believe that the SES is going to turn up."
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