SES volunteers in Lakes Entrance have battled for the past 10 years to get a satellite base in town where an emergency vehicle and equipment could be housed, however they have hit a wall at every turn.
The main SES station for this area is at Bruthen, which covers Nowa Nowa to Nicholson and up the Great Alpine Road close to Ensay. It is a large area, so SES volunteers say it makes sense to have a vehicle service in the Lakes Entrance/Metung/Nowa Nowa area.
One of the volunteers has generously allowed an SES vehicle to be parked in his driveway, at a private residence, however this is far from ideal.
“We need somewhere we could store a couple of pallets of sand-bags, at the moment we have to fill bags at the time of the emergency,” one concerned member said.
“Because all the equipment for every different emergency has to be stored in the vehicle, there is no room or weight allowance for anything extra. Last time there was a flood we had volunteers filling sand bags and ferrying them in their own cars. This is not an acceptable situation.”
IMAGE: An SES vehicle has long been stationed in a Lakes Entrance volunteer’s driveway for ease of access as there is no station in the immediate area. Calls for a station in either Lakes Entrance, Nowa Nowa or Metung have gone unheard.
