SES heroes tell their stories of NSW flood rescues
They lost sleep, gave up their jobs, saw horrific sights — now NSW’s heroic “orange army” of SES volunteers tell of their own stories of rolling up their sleeves to help and why they did it. LEAVE YOUR TRIBUTE.
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When freak floods destroyed Lismore in February they were the worst NSW had seen in modern history — but for the men and women of the NSW SES it was just the start of 12 months of natural disasters.
2022 marked the busiest year in the orange army’s 60-year history, with calls for assistance set to hit 80,000 by the end of the year.
The Sunday Telegraph is paying thanks to the brave volunteers who put their lives on hold and on the line to save us during a year of flood chaos.
This year the NSW SES doubled their workload compared to 2021, responding to an extra 38,000 jobs across NSW, including Lismore, the Hawkesbury Nepean, the Central West, the south coast and Moama.
There were 3806 flood rescues this year, and the SES still responded to its usual road crashes (548) and land rescues (608).
The year from hell began with a warning from authorities to the Northern Rivers — that flooding is on its way, not expected to exceed 2017 levels.
What followed was a complete dumping of water. Four lost their lives.
In small SES units in and around Lismore, overworked and under-resourced volunteers struggled to grapple with the task ahead as phone towers went down, helicopters didn’t come and boats became a prized resource.
Christine Boyle has seen the behind the scenes work of her partner Ashley Slapp, Woodburn Unit Commander, and as soon as the floods came she found one of his old uniforms and spontaneously volunteered.
“I’m used to it, I would help Ash behind the scenes so I was watching everything he did with his unit. When I joined I was just part of the family,” Ms Boyle said.
It then began a year of full time work. The unit shed flooded, many volunteers burned out and lost their own homes, and recovery is still a work in progress.
For Sydneysiders the Lismore floods were a warning of what was to come, as throughout 2022 the Hawkesbury Nepean communities faced multiple flood events.
Volunteers saw people lose their homes time and time again as La Nina continued its punishing deluge.
“We spent days if not weeks out on the Hawkesbury Nepean doing resupply, flood rescued, even through metro Sydney when Liverpool went down,” Blacktown Unit volunteer Terence Siriwardena said.
“I returned a family to their home after one of the floods, this was their fourth flood in two years.”
The family could only afford the repairs if their upstairs was spared. Mr Siriwardena had to deliver the crushing news their home was underwater.
“They were devastated, we were upset as well.”
Overworked and separated from friends and family, SES volunteers hoped once the floods waters receded they could enjoy a reprieve.
But 2022 was yet to deal its final blow, with flooding in southern NSW and the Central West taking the orange army from across NSW to help.
Carnage in Forbes, an inland tsunami in Eugowra and then as Susan Bennett saw the flood waters coming to her town, she started building the Great Wall of Condo.
“The idea of it was to motivate the locals, and get them to help us to protect the town,” the Condobolin Unit Commander said.
“Our flood was very long, slow and painful … we went from cruising along with the odd sandbag job to getting 40 jobs a day, which became very overwhelming,” she said.
For Ms Bennett, making sure her volunteers were supported in the aftermath of confronting jobs was paramount.
Facing road crashes, destructive floods and frustration in the community takes its toll.
“I have a rule that anybody that doesn’t need to see something shouldn’t … I don’t believe you can unsee something.”
The heroic actions of SES volunteers has defined 2022, but the organisation has faced its fair share of criticism after the government commissioned flood report found flaws in the emergency response in the Northern Rivers.
Emergency Services Minister Steph Cooke said $200 million in funding to improve flood response capabilities will share the load more fairly for overworked volunteers.
“Never in our history has the SES presence been more important,” she said.
“My message to the volunteers is, from the bottom of my heart, thank you for all that you’ve done this year.
“I’m so proud to be the minister for Emergency Services … you’ve absolutely done us all proud.”
Susan Bennett, 54, unit commander, Conobolin Unit
After the death of her parents left her without caring responsibilities and more time on her hands than ever before, Susan Bennet turned to the orange army.
Little did she know after just a few years of service she would be unit commander, in charge of trying to save the small town of Condobolin from one of the most devastating floods they had ever seen.
After going back to work part-time in an engineering workshop, Susan was forced to leave her paid work behind and become a full-time volunteer.
“I haven’t worked for four months because our flood response has been a full time job, we’ve had to walk away from our jobs, our friends and families to be 24/7 SES volunteers,” Ms Bennet said.
“Even with floods (subsided) we are still online for general land rescue, we are the primary road crash unit for 200 kilometres.
One of the most memorable rescues for Susan was at 2am during the Condobolin floods where she took a call from a man whose sandbags were breached and was succumbing to exhaustion.
With no helicopters available and no machinery big enough to reach the flooding home, Susan and her team sent out a small boat into the perilous waters to bring the man to safety.
“He had crawled up in a ball ready to go asleep and wash away,” Ms Bennet said.
Susan gets teary eyed when talking about the flood rescue, remembering just one of the sleepless nights when her team was pushed to their physical and emotional limits to save human life.
Christine Boyle, 45, logistics officer, Woodburn Unit
After spontaneously volunteering during the chaos of the Northern Rivers floods, Christine Boyle quickly learnt how important the comforts of a warm meal and a shoulder to lean on were for her decimated community.
Stranded with no phone reception and no power, the resourceful community took anything they could, from supply drops and broken fridges, to feed each other.
“We would do a pizza night, we had no power so we had to use up everything, spaghetti the next night just to make sure everyone was fed and safe,” Ms Boyle said.
“We did a lot of welfare checks, organising medications for diabetics and people doing chemo.”
To communicate with her partner and unit commander Ashley Slapp, Christine would have to set an exact time so they could both trek it to the nearest place with service.
“When the water started to go down a little bit we would have to go three kilometres down the road just to get texts,” she said.
“If I was lucky and he told me the chopper was on the way, or I could hear the helicopters, I could race to it and get the supplies.”
Despite it being her first week on the job, Christine had learnt the ropes after seeing all the behind the scenes work from Ashley, and quickly became a full-time member of the team.
Ashley Slapp, 52, unit commander, Woodburn Unit
Unit Commander Ashley Slapp’s five years in the SES still couldn’t prepare him for the destruction of the Northern Rivers floods.
“I work over 40 or 50 hours every week, it's a small unit — normally you would have people with all different titles in a unit, but I am all the titles,” he said.
The already small unit lost many key volunteers after their own homes were destroyed.
The Woodburn Unit’s SES shed was also flooded, and the full-time volunteer is still fighting to get basic things like internet sorted through insurers.
“It does take my life over a bit.”
Amid the non-stop work this year, Ashley has also been able to experience moments he could have never dreamt of, including his conversation with the future king.
Mr Slapp told Prince William his story, and shared with the Prince what it was like on the ground.
“He wanted to talk to some of the people in the floods, it was supposed to be a 25 minute call and it turned into an hour,” he said.
“He just wanted to know what was going on, he was really concerned you could see it, he was listening and feeling it.”
The cherry on top of the experience was the picture his partner Christine snapped of the Zoom call, complete with Mr Slapp’s uniform on top — and short-shorts on the bottom.
“That photo is on my wall, they call me the Duke of Woodburn now!”
Terence Siriwardena, 26, logistics officer and operator, Blacktown Unit
Terence Siriwardena owns his own construction company, but his real passion is helping the community.
His dedication to the SES has seen him sent all over NSW to help with floods and storms, but one of his most memorable rescues became national news when in July his unit was called to rescue a young woman clinging to a tree in Holsworthy.
“We were the only team that night operating with an inflatable boat … when we got the call in our ETA was close to an hour, which in itself is worrisome especially with the person in the water,” Mr Siriwardena said.
The team rushed to the job as quickly as they could as updates came in every few minutes – the water had reached her waist, then her chest.
“It was very fast flowing water … the sigh of relief when she finally came into the boat was something else,” he said.
“If she had let go of that tree she would have floated down stream and the likelihood of her surviving would be little to none.”
Frozen, dripping wet and in shock, the SES team had to carry her into the ambulance.
“After that rescue we got her out of the water, started to pack up our boat and was immediately called to another rescue after rescue for another five hours.”
Karen Cho, 23, operator, Blacktown Unit
After witnessing the volunteer spirit of her local community during the Black Summer bushfires, student Karen Cho took up the call and has been on near constant deployment since.
Finding a family with her brothers and sisters in orange overalls has made all the missed family events and long days in floodwaters worth it.
“It’s been difficult to juggle, I’m now studying part-time so I have more time to put into volunteering,” Ms Cho said.
“It definitely comes with the sacrifice of your own time to spend with friends and family … but the volunteers, we become each others family.”
The SES has taken Karen all over the state, but the biggest impact on her was when helping families close to home along the Hawkesbury River.
“I was helping out in Wisemans Ferry running resupply … a family came through on our ferry service, this was the third or fourth time they had flooded,” she said.
“The part that really hit me was the fact that these floods are impacting the community in such a way they are displaced from their homes, spending all this money moving and cleaning up just to do it all over again.
“It’s quite emotional, you see the real impact and it’s not just a number on a screen but real lives and real families, that's why I enjoy doing the field work because it drives home the importance of what we are doing.”
Tom Dorahy, 18, operator, Strathfield Unit
While his classmates were bunkering down for their final week of HSC cramming, Tom Dorahy was on his first deployment with the SES.
The 18-year-old was over the moon to go on deployment in Wagga Wagga, and admits his study took a back seat to his important role in the floods.
“I got a rest day so a did a bit of study that day … I’m used to doing normal roof jobs around Sydney, so getting to meet new people and help with rescues in a new place was great,” Mr Dorahy said.
“I was a bit nervous about my exams, but I got early entry to university. At the end of the day I could have studied more … but my favourite thing is being able to help people in the worst day of their lives.”
In Sydney Tom has held a range of jobs in SES and on deployment was one of the crucial people behind the scenes connecting SES crews to people in need of rescue.
“Everyone sees the rescuers in the water, but no one sees the behind the scenes … its quite a high pressure role juggling getting messages and getting on the radio.
“All my teachers think its pretty cool.”
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