Waverley Woollahra were kept busy over the weekend of the 12th - 14th December with 20 calls for assistance. Constant rain and heavy winds over the weekend brought request for assistance with leaking roofs, fallen trees and damaged skylights. Our Volunteers worked throughout the night and into the early hours with the assistance of Rose Bay Police and Woollahra Council.

General Operations

Waverley Woollahra Local Headquarters of the NSW State Emergency Service (SES) is the agency responsible for storm and flood operations in Waverley and Woollahra’s Local Government areas.

The types of jobs that we are most often called to are:

• To assist residents with temporary repairs to their roofs when these are damaged in storms in order to prevent further damage to their houses;
• To pump water from flooded rooms, basements & car parks; 
• To provide protection to properties to prevent the ingress of flood waters;
• To "make safe" trees and branches that are damaged or threatening in storms and that are creating a hazard to people and/or their properties;
• To assist residents with temporary repairs to their windows, awnings, doors & etc when these are damaged in storms.

We may be called on to assist out of area SES teams, such as when the storms hit the Blacktown area before Christmas 2007 and in the floods on the North Coast. We can also be called on to help the Rural Fire Service during severe bushfires and to assist the police in searching for lost people and evidence.

Our regular training means that we are ready when the weather throws up challenges or the police need our help.

During 2007 the total number of hours contributed by the volunteers at Waverley Woollahra was 10,461. This equates to 1307.6, 8 hour workdays. Of these, 2821.87 hours were spent in operations. This was 4 times more than in 2006.

We were busy with storms in February, April and October and particularly busy in June, when the East Coast between Wollongong and Newcastle was hit by a series of storms. We were kept busy in our local area with over 300 requests for assistance.

Our next peak in operational activity was in December where we provided teams to assist the Sydney Western Region after the hail and rain storm of 9 December.