Wollongong City SESAnnual Report

2010

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Wollongong City SES Unit Montague Street, North Wollongong, NSW 2500

E: ops@wollongong.ses.nsw.gov.au

Wollongong City Local Controller

Steve Cliffe

Our Vision: To build and support safe and resilient communities by providing the State’s most versatile and utilised volunteer emergency service

Our Motto: Volunteers excelling in emergency management

Our Mission: Lead communities in managing floods and storms and help people in other emergencies

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Introduction

This is my first annual report as Local Controller of the Wollongong City Unit; 2010 has been quite a busy year.

The Unit has continued to develop, grow and excel in training and operations and continued to work closely with all emergency services and community organisations in the area.

Operationally the Unit has had a few significant events:• Tsunami Marine Warning in February: Whilst this only lasted a day it was significant in that it is a new

area that the SES is now responsible for and involved the full resources of the Unit as well as those of SES units along the NSW coast

• Bulli Upper Railway Catchment Dam emergency in May: In addition to responding to storm damage op-erations we undertook the evacuation of 130 properties in the footprint of the dam failure area following the issue of a red alert for the dam. The Unit was involved in monitoring the dam over the next couple of days and conducted a letter drop to 350 residents

• Father’s Day Windstorm in September: The Unit responded to over 700 requests for assistance following the windstorm which impacted much of the East Coast on Father’s Day. We were operational for almost a week and coordinated assistance from Out Of Area (OOA) SES teams, NSW Rural Fire Service (RFS), Fire and Rescue NSW (FRNSW) and worked closely with Council

Achievements

The Wollongong SES Unit had a successful year consisting of a variety of activities and gains.

The following are some of the highlights and achievements in the area:

• The refurbishment of our Operations Centre including raising of the floor to remove it from the 1% AEP flood level

• Installation of wide-screen monitors throughout our headquarters to improve the display of operational information to our members

• The replacement of all our computer equipment with current technology• The replacement of our old rusting backup power generator with a brand new model• The receipt of a new Mini-bus to assist in the transport of members• The receipt of a new Mitsubishi Triton dual-cab 4WD light response vehicle• The receipt of a new Rigid Hull Inflatable Flood Rescue boat• Attended urgent flood rescue response in Goulburn area with Level 2, 3 and Incident Management Team

(IMT) capabilities

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20100

200

400

600

800

Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sept Oct Nov Dec2010 32 103 19 10 58 26 34 86 790 44 41 452009 8 11 6 25 46 37 24 153 274 86 13 13

Numb

er of

Tasks

RFA By Month

Flood , 7

Storm, 1181

Search, 4

Public Relations, 15

Other, 43 Tsunami, 1 Training, 46Community Education, 3

Flood

Storm

Search

Public Relations

Other

Tsunami

Training

Community Education

Response Types

In 2010 Wollongong Unit experi-enced an increase in operational activity particularly in storm responses. The Wollongong Unit completed 20 more storm RFA’s in 2010 than the entire Illawarra South Coast region combined in 2009.

Volunteer Hours

Operational storm hours (Left) consumed 2010 for the unit with a total of 27,283 hours.

With the busy workload operationally, it is impressive to note that training hours increased from 2919 in 2009 to 3576 in 2010, up 22.5%.

Operational Periods

February saw the operational year (below) commence with a storm (103 RFA’s), then in May the Bulli Dam Evacuation (58 RFA’s) and later in the year the Father’s day Windstorm. (790 RFA’s).

1 10 100 1000 10000 100000

Community Ed / PR

Equipment Maintenance

Unit Administration

Training - All

Support - Police

Rescue - Vertical and Animal

Tsunami

Storm

Flood

2009

2010

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Volunteer AnalysisThe largest age group (21-30) makes up 38% of membership at the Unit. This may be due to Wollongong being a university city or more likely due to Wollongong’s population increasing with more Generation Y’s moving to the area.

6%

38%

21%

13%

9%12% 16-20

21-30

31-40

41-50

51-60

≥61

Age Distribution

44%

56% Male

Female

Gender Ratio

40%

19%

13%

13%

8% 7%

Length Of Service

0-2

2-5

5-8

8-10

10-15

>15

0 50 100 150 200

Volunteers

2007

2008

2009

2010

Wollongong Unit, like most units in ISR, has the majority of members in the 0-2 category. This can be attributed to the ongoing recruitment to in-crease volunteer membership in all units.

Wollongong Unit is very unique in that it is the only unit in ISR that has a greater percentage of females to males. The female to male split in the unit is 56/42, well above the Region average of 37/63 and the State average of 31/69.

Below represents the steady increase in membership of the Unit over the last 4 years, with membership currently at 151.

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Training

The SES is a Registered Training Organisation (RTO) with the Vocational and Educational Training Advisory Board and has issued the following competencies and statements of attainment (SofA) during 2010 to members of the Wollongong City Unit (compared to 2009):

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

Firs

t Aid

Safe

Driv

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olicy

Indu

ctio

nL1

Sw

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ater

Aw

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ess

L2 F

lood

Boa

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Tec

hnici

ans

Swim

Tes

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ains

aw C

ross

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Vert

ical R

escu

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orm

Dam

age

Oper

ate

Com

ms E

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Land

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chGe

nera

l Res

cue

Map

Rea

ding

/ Na

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aine

rsRF

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RFP

RFAO

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Wor

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Cen

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Air O

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Team

Lead

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ain

Team

Saf

ety

(P)

Mai

ntai

n Te

am S

afet

y (C

)Dr

ive

4WD

Vehi

cles

2009

2010

Equipment

The SES continues to invest in the Wollongong Local Government Area to ensure that the Unit is appropriately resourced. Some of the key items that were distributed include:Flood rescue kits for all vehicles and floodboats, 4 x Samsung televisions to enhance operational visual displays, upgrade in all computer hardware, mobile phones and GPS Units and additional equipment to kit out new vehicle.An equipment replacement program was carried out during Sep-tember/October where a variety of operational equipment was replaced/upgraded to ensure our Unit’s ongoing capabilities.Capital expenditure enabled the SES to provide Wollongong City Unit with two new vehicles, one additional rescue vehicle and one commuter bus.

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Unit Financial Summary

The financial year for the Wollongong City Unit runs from 1 May to 30 April.

The following table reflects the financial summary for that period. All other information in this report is based on the 2010 calendar year.

Financial Report

Statement of Receipts and PaymentsWollongong City Account Balance as at 1 May 2009 $37,024.30

2009/2010 2008/2009Receipts $ $ SES (incl. grants, gst reimbursements) 22,814.50 6,367.00Donations 9,937.50 31,003.00Fundraising Income 7,565.10 15,075.00Interest Received 466.69Miscellaneous Income 6,011.37 4,948.00Council 17,296.00 7,077.00Grants 5,000.00

Total Receipts $69,091.16 $64,470.00

Payments $ $ Unit Office Expenses, Stationary and Consumables 17,462.03 7,448.00Misc Trailer/Boats/Vehicles 1,021.32Consumable Equipment and Tools 36,514.09 7,106.00Misc Expenses 6,618.83 30,761.00Bank Charges and FeesVolunteer Reimbursements 338.18 267.00Training Expenses 5,644.68 4,640.00GST Input Tax 6,002.66

Total Payments $73,601.79 $50,222.00

Net Receipts (Payments) -$4,510.63 $14,248.00

Funds Available as at 30 April 2010 $32,513.67

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