Page 1065 - Week 04 - Tuesday, 3 May 2022
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supporting services to remain prepared and ready throughout the season meant that the community was safe and well protected against this risk.
As a result of the great work done by rural landholders, land managers and PCS, through slashing, physical removal and grazing, the risk of grass fires was also substantially reduced. I would like to commend the community for their diligence in undertaking preparedness activities and completing their emergency survival plans.
The ACT State Emergency Service has supported the Canberra community through another hazardous storm season driven by the La Niña climate. The 2021-22 storm season saw ACT SES respond to over 4,000 requests for assistance calls. Notably, the northern region of Canberra was hit with a severe weather event on Monday, 3 January 2022, which required a coordinated response from across the ACT government. This extreme weather event saw our emergency service volunteers and staff respond to more than 1,000 requests for assistance over the following week.
Our ACT SES personnel were supported by volunteers and staff from across the ESA, including from ACT Fire & Rescue and the ACT Rural Fire Service, as well as support from ACT Policing, New South Wales State Emergency Service, Evoenergy, PCS, and Transport Canberra and City Services, to respond to jobs that included leaking roofs, minor flooding and securing areas where trees had fallen on cars and homes.
I would like to extend a special thankyou to our jurisdictional counterpart colleagues from New South Wales SES for their assistance during this severe weather event. I am pleased to advise that we were able to return that level of support and help strengthen the cross-border relationship even further by providing ground and incident management support to assist in the flood recovery efforts across New South Wales this season.
Particularly throughout March 2022, a number of ESA task forces, including members from across the agency, were deployed into New South Wales. Ground support activities consisted of temporary roof repairs, sandbagging, tree operations and water inundation, enabling local New South Wales SES crews to gain some much-needed rest in a region that continues to be impacted by heavy rainfall and flooding.
Incident Management Team specialists from the ESA provided critical functional roles, including planning, public information, mapping and incident control. Additionally, there were deployments of the specialist intelligence-gathering helicopter for aerial support and intelligence. A huge thankyou to all of the volunteers that take time out of their personal lives to help not only their community but communities across Australia. You are an outstanding reflection of the agency and the giving nature of Australians.
With La Niña expected to persist well into autumn, we are anticipating above-average rainfall and below-normal fire potential to continue into the cooler months. This is a timely reminder to all Canberrans that, although the period of heightened storm activity has ended, storms can happen all year round. It is important to remain prepared and know what to do if you become affected by a storm by ensuring that
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