Saturday 2 May 2015

NSW Deployment - day 3B

When I got back from the recce I referred to in the last post, I found that my crew (Barwon) had been sent out to a job. I was preparing for a spell of killing time when I heard that another crew (Warrnambool) was being sent out to a tree-on-house job. I put my hand up to go with them and off we went in Lismore City SES's rescue truck -


This was the scene that greeted is when we arrived.  The whole neighbourhood was houses of a similar type, clearly built for handling heat.  Once again, it made me think of Thibodaux, La., a sense amplified by the humidity.
 
 
Daniel, a member from the Sunbury Unit, began to cut back limbs near the top end of the tree with a pole saw, in order to have as much away from the house when the tree itself dropped.
 
A bit of cutting later and the tree dropped in a big way: straight down, with some outlying branches smashing the owner's Hills Hoist!  But, his house was undamaged aside from a smashed garden light and he was grateful for our work.  I was hauling cut branches away from the work zone; it felt great to exert my muscles and work up a sweat.  This is why I love SES: the sense of doing something worthwhile:
 
 
We headed back to town and went for lunch at the Workers Club again. Because I'd been feeling Thibodaux all day, I went for the fish-burger, which was as close as I could find to a po'boy.  Oh to have had some Tony Chacheres!  It was good to have lunch with a few people I hadn't spoken with much. You always meet good people in orange overalls.
 
I'll tell you the rest of the day's adventures next post.

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