By Jesse Graham
Healesville’s SES crew will have new equipment to complement their expanded headquarters, following a Victorian Government grant announcement earlier this month.
On Friday, 17 February, Northern Victoria MLC Jaclyn Symes announced successful grant applications for CFA and SES crews across the region.
Under the grants program, the Healesville unit will receive $22,900 for a new 100 kVA diesel generator, operational equipment and improvements to their facility.
They will also share in a $39,900 grant with Upper Yarra SES for further operational equipment, training and a lighting platform to be shared between the two units.
Unit spokesperson, Maria Lastra said the generator would keep the SES running as normal during a major storm, such as the one that hit the region on Sunday, 9 October last year.
During that storm, winds of more than 120 kilometres per hour lashed the region, felling powerlines and trees across the state – with the Yarra Ranges one of the worst-hit regions.
“With all the storm events that happened, we wanted to go for a generator that would keep our headquarters open in that weather,” Ms Lastra said.
“We’re completely excited about how that’s going to benefit the unit and the community.
“It’s the biggest generator you can get.”
Ms Lastra said the grants accompanied a renovation of the current unit site on Argoon Road, which would feature a new training room, operations room and offices.
“We can still operate out of the unit in such a big storm event that we experienced last year, that was quite scary for everyone, still receive calls, deploy and communicate with all of our trucks,” she said.
“It’s quite beneficial for everyone.”
She said the lighting platform would allow the SES to set up lighting at an incident without running lighting from their trucks, freeing up the unit to attend more incidents.
“We can provide lighting for anything and still have two, three available trucks to go out for anything,” she said.
The grants came through the Emergency Services Volunteer Sustainability Grants program.
Ms Symes said the grants, which totalled $500,000, would help CFA and SES crews to keep doing their “crucial” work.
“This is great news for our emergency services in country Victoria and I congratulate all our grant recipients and hope that it assists them in the outstanding job they do in keeping the community safe,” she said.
