‘Couldn’t have done it without them’: Volunteer’s gratitude for flood clean-up help

A Cardwell SES and RFS volunteer’s home flooded in February. Days later, his volunteer workmates were knocking at the door to help clean up.

Ted Fay (white shirt) and fellow SES and RFS volunteers cleaning up his home in Cardwell. Picture: Supplied

Ted Fay’s home was a stinking, hot, muddy mess in the wake of the Cardwell floods, but the stoic response of the SES and Rural Fire Service during the clean-up made him “proud to be a volunteer”.

In February, Cardwell resident and dual SES and Rural Fire Service volunteer Ted Fay was sitting on his veranda surveying the rising floodwaters with his visiting family.

His fellow SES and RFS volunteers were regularly ringing to check they were okay.

“All of a sudden, the water started rising a foot a minute,” Mr Fay said.

Within 15 minutes, over 1.5 metres of water had flooded their home.

Ted and Pam’s home the day after the flood. Picture: Brendan Radke

“Luckily the gentleman next door had a canoe,” Mr Fay said.

“He got my wife and granddaughter first, and took them over to his place. Then he came back in the pitch black … I’ve had major back surgery, and I can’t swim at all, and they put me in a canoe. The water was running very strong, and there was debris and garbage everywhere, and they swam me over through that, and got me to the neighbour’s house.

“He virtually saved my life, that gentleman.”

Mr Fay and his family spent that night “cramped in a couple of little bedrooms” on the second floor of his neighbour’s house.

“We looked out on the balcony and we just looked at our house, and everything we own – gone. The house, the shed, the car, everything, gone,” Mr Fay said.

“At least we were safe.”

Once the flood waters dropped, the clean-up began, and his SES and RFS workmates were at the door to help clean up the mess.

Ted and Pam Fay surveying their home in the aftermath of the flood. Picture: Brendan Radke

“Everything was just covered in mud, absolutely rotten, stinking mud … and it was a hot, stinking day,” Mr Fay said.

“They (the volunteers) were all soaked to the skin and covered in mud and gear … working in arduous, stinking hot conditions, but they just kept plodding on.

“I couldn’t have done it without them, no way in the world.

“It made me proud to be a volunteer,” he said.

“They just kept going,” Fay said of the volunteers. Picture: Supplied

Mr Fay and his wife, Pam, retired to Cardwell in 2014.

With a background as a mechanic, Mr Fay decided to join the Cardwell SES, and soon after, was approached to join the Rural Fire Service, so he did that too. Currently, he is the treasurer of the Cardwell SES and secretary of the Kennedy Valley RFS.

After their home was cleaned out, in an another show of camaraderie, an RFS teammate then offered Mr and Ms Fay an off-road camper van to live in, where they have been since the flood.

At the end of March, they will move from the camper van into a unit “for at least six months” while their house is rebuilt.

“It’s still an absolute mess, as you can imagine,” Mr Fay said of his home.

“But we’re just taking little steps at a time.”

Ted Fay has been a volunteer for nearly five years. Picture: Supplied

Mr Fay will continue his SES and RFS duties as his house is rebuilt, and said their support has been nothing short of “brilliant”.

“Both parties, the Rural Fire Service and the SES – they’ve kept me going, they really have.

“It’s time like these – become a volunteer,” he said.

“It pays. “

Originally published as ‘Couldn’t have done it without them’: Volunteer’s gratitude for flood clean-up help