Helpers helped out

By Kath Gannaway
A TRUCK and equipment donated by the South Australian community of Victor Harbour will be put to good use as the bushfire ravaged township of Marysville rebuilds.
The four-wheel-drive, Nissan tray truck and extras including wheelbarrows, a hand mower, spare tyres and other equipment was delivered to Healesville RSL with instructions to see it put it to good use where it was needed.
A few phone calls down the track Marysville SES controller Ian Bates and Deputy Controller Josephine Hunter made the trip over the Black Spur on Wednesday to receive the keys from RSL president Arthur Ford.
With activities in Marysville still very much on hold Mr Bates and Ms Hunter said it was too early to say exactly where the truck would be used.
The SES lost one of their vehicles, a road accident rescue truck, as the fires swept through, but Mr Bates said all three emergency service units – CFA, SES and ambulance – who operate out of the shared facility in Marysville were fortunate to come away relatively unscathed.
What isn’t in any doubt in their minds is that the truck will do the Victor Harbour and the Marysville communities proud.
“One possibility is to use it as a community utility. I know a lot of people who have lost vehicles, who have lost everything, and who will need this sort of help,” Mr Bates said.
“It will be put to whatever is the best use for the whole town.”
Ms Hunter said the response of people towards the Marysville community had been overwhelming.
“The generosity is amazing from local people whose houses survived who have given us donations to companies from interstate who have sent things down, stock food on trucks that started arriving in the first few days and support like this truck,” she said.
Ms Hunter was on duty on the Saturday from about 2.45pm when the unit was called out to deal with damage from the high winds.
As the fire threat escalated unit members went from putting an evacuation plan for elderly and disabled residents into operation to cutting a woman from her car after a tree fell on it, to a full-scale street-sweep with police to let residents know of the fire which was virtually upon them.
“We drove the streets with sirens and lights … there was no time for doorknocking,” Ms Hunter said.
With hordes of people leaving in their cars Mr Bates said one of the greatest dangers was that they might become trapped if a tree fell on the road out from Marysville to Buxton.
“We kept dropping back to the back of the line so if a tree came down, or there was an accident, we could deal with it,” Ms Hunter added.
Both say people who were not on the ground on the Sunday morning after the firestorm will ever fully understand the intensity of what Marysville was really like at that time.
“We went back on the Sunday … everything was still on fire and you were driving off the road to get through. People who didn’t see that won’t realise what it was like in the first few days,” Ms Hunter said.
“It’s going to be hard once they get back in,” Mr Bates added.