107
Volunteers Deployed

$314,750
Community Costs Saved

69
Work Orders Completed

63
ADAT Flights Completed

6,160
Volunteer Hours

155
ADAT Flight Hours

The Mid-North-Coast to South of Sydney NSW experienced a sustained extreme weather event that set in on 19 March 2021 and continued until 25 March 2021 across many areas. This natural disaster brought record levels of rainfall in some areas, leading to extensive flooding and evacuation orders. Properties were inundated as the river peaked at 5.65 metres, falling just short of the historical high of 6 metres in 1929.

In response, Disaster Relief Australia (DRA), conducted a flood recovery operation in the area of the Port Macquarie – Hastings and Mid Coast Council areas named Operation Elliot, commencing on 10 April 2021.

Devastated communities and overwhelmed homeowners are looking at months of hard work to restore their livelihoods and bring back hope. The assistance provided by DRA has gone a long way to help these homeowners in kickstarting their recovery. Jobs included mucking out mud, removing extensive rubbish and debris, clearing access to properties, chainsaw work, fence line repairs and aerial damage assessments. Our members rolled up their sleeves, got dirty and provided real hands-on help where it was needed over the 5 week operation.

The difference that I saw made in just the one day I’ve been with DRA, it put me in the driver seat, gives me an insight into the hard and vital work that they do. This is the absolute truth, the entire DRA team, their generosity and what they’ve brought to the Port Macquarie Hastings region through what has been one of the biggest crises that our region has faced, I am in absolute awe. I cannot stress how
important it is for our community to continue assisting the families in the Valley and Lower Pappinbarra.
Mayor Peta Pinson

Significant media reported on Disaster Relief Australia’s flood recovery operations in the NSW Mid North Coast area brought vital awareness to the ongoing issues faced by disaster affected communities.

 

Peta Pinson is the first woman elected to the role of Mayor in the region of Port Macquarie-Hastings, NSW. For her first term in office, she has witnessed two fires, an ongoing pandemic and is now overseeing the recovery of her community after the devastating one-in-a-100-year floods of March 2021.

Maroy arrives at Wachope ShowgroundsMayor Pinson with Disaster Relief Australia volunteers

Mayor Pinson dedicated an entire day to volunteer with Disaster Relief Australia. She wanted to see firsthand the work of DRA in her flood-impacted community. Mayor Pinson arrived at the Wauchope Showgrounds for the morning brief and instantly bonded with the teams. Arriving at the Smith’s family home on a 320-acre beef farm in Lower Pappinbarra it was all hands on deck to clear flood debris piled high along fences, trees and sheds.

Mayor Peta Pinson clearing flood debris with Nicole Richards from Disaster Relief AustraliaMayor Peta Pinson clearing flood debris with Nicole Richards from Disaster Relief Australia

The Mayor worked alongside DRA volunteers to bring the Smith family some relief from the constant reminders of flood debris strewn across their property. She noted “The difference that I saw made in just the one day I’ve been with DRA, it put me in the driver seat, gives me an insight into the hard and vital work that they do. This is the absolute truth, the entire DRA team, their generosity and what they’ve brought to the Port Macquarie Hastings region through what has been one of the biggest crises that our region has faced, I am in absolute awe. I cannot stress how important it is for our community to continue assisting the families in the Valley and Lower Pappinbarra.”

before and after of clearing flood debris off fences
The before and after of clearing flood debris off fences that are situated nearly 200 metres back from the Pappinbarra River

Industrial-sized cable fencing and metal poles only installed weeks before the floods had washed up along the riverbank over 300 metres. Property owner Heather remarked the repairing the vital farm infrastructure would have taken ‘weekends’ and ‘weekends’ worth of work. It was completed with the DRA teams and Mayor Pinson in under two hours.

In true DRA style, the teams worked alongside the property owners, Harvey and Heather, returning a sense of normality and lifting their spirits in the joint comradery of teamwork.

As the day drew to a close, Mayor Pinson said s “Apart from the seriousness of what we are doing, we all got to know each other, share some laughs and learn new skills”.

With just over a week and a half to go on Operation Elliot on the NSW Mid North Coast our teams on the ground have been busy over the past four weeks assisting members of the community impacted by the recent catastrophic floods.

Since our operation began on 27th March, we have deployed 76 members, completed 4,066 hours of work, completed 41 work orders and saved the community over $210,273.

Our Flood Relief Community Partners

As a non-profit organisation, the work we do would not be possible without the funding and support of our various partners. Clubs NSW, Lions Australia, Mitsubishi Motors Australia Limited, Bunnings Warehouse Australia and Coates Hire stand with us over multiple operations.

We are also so grateful for the support from local councils and community groups which for Operation Elliot included the Camden Haven SLS Club, Club North Haven and Wauchope Showgrounds. These partnerships are invaluable and appreciated not only by our organisation and our members but by the communities we serve.

3588
Volunteer Hours

76
Volunteers Deployed

41
Work Orders Completed

$210,273
Community Costs Saved

Our people are what it is all about
Nick Backe-Hansen member reflection

I’ve come to really understand there exists a kind of nexus between us, as a small embedded team in a damaged area, and the community. There is a unique personal connection that we can bring to them as Blue Shirts that  is more difficult for larger organisations to achieve.

Read a reflection from mission commander Nick during Operation Elliot.

 

Operation ELLIOT Mission Commander Davina Pye spoke with Radio National Breakfast this morning 13th April, 2021. Fran Kelly and Davina discussed the Mid North Coast Floods and how Disaster Relief Australia has deployed veteran volunteers to assist with vital flood recovery in the region.

Listen: https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/breakfast/veterans-help-nsw-communities-with-flood-clean-up/13300270

Pictured: MC Davina Pye and the DRA incident management team on the ground in North Haven booking cleanup jobs for flood affected residents.

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Read the interview

Fran Kelly:
Our war veterans spend years helping people from other countries in times of natural disasters or war. This week, many of them will travel to the mid north coast of New South Wales for something called Operation Elliott, a flood recovery mission by the not for profit group Disaster Relief Australia. The aim is to help rebuild the area after the floods where at least 75 homes were lost in last month’s extreme weather event.

Davina Pye is a veteran and a firefighter with Fire and Rescue New South Wales. She’s the mission commander for Wave 1 of operation ELLIOT. Davina Pye, welcome.

Davina Pye:
Thank you, Fran. great to be here.

Fran Kelly:
What is operation ELLIOT and how many veterans are involved?

Davina Pye:
Operation ELLIOT is a flood recovery mission for the mid north coast in the Port Macquarie Hastings area that was heavily affected during the floods between the 19th and the 25th of March. We’ve currently got 20 veterans on the ground. Disaster Relief Australia unites military veterans, first responders and like minded civilians who want to help people out in emergency situations. We’ve been together for 5 years. We’ve assisted at many disaster sites around Australia and are currently in the Perth hills on Operation Woods providing fire recovery, and now here in the Camden Haven region doing flood recovery.

Fran Kelly:
Is it a volunteer operation or are the veterans and first responders paid to do this work?

Davina Pye:
It’s all volunteer. We have retirees and people still currently working that take leave. They have such a passion for this type of work and for doing something for the community that they take the time off.

Fran Kelly:
Tell me about the passion. Let’s talk about the Veterans first because a lot of vets come home and it’s hard for them, we know because we’ve talked to quite a few here on breakfast and we know that they find it hard to settle in, they find it hard either because of what they’ve experienced over there, or because of the changing situation they find themselves in. Why is is important?

Davina Pye:
It gives them a connection, not only to the other veterans they’re working with, but also to the communities that they’re participating in the recovery for. They care. What they were able to do overseas for another country, they can now do at home.

Fran Kelly:
Is it significant that they get to use the skills they were trained for? What is your experience Davina, when did you serve?

Davina Pye:

I can speak for myself. That feeling of being able to help someone on their worst day and make it just that little bit better is amazing. I was a medic with the Australian Army for 11 years, I deployed to Papua New Guinea for tidal wave relief in 98, East Timor in 99, and Bougainville in 2002.

Fran Kelly:
And in those places as a medic, you helped people on the ground who were recovering from difficult situations?

Davina Pye:
Absolutely. Especially in Papua New Guinea after the tidal wave. We were treating people for two weeks through the first surgical response, in the first 24 hours they did something like 16 amputations from wounds received.

Fran Kelly:
When you come home, when you finish the service, and you’re not an Army medic anymore, is it hard to figure out how to fit back into a community and do a regular job? How does the work you’re doing here with Disaster Relief Australia help with that?

Davina Pye:
The military is very different to anything that you would do usually. You talk a certain way, act a certain way, and to turn that off, it takes a long time – you probably never do. After doing deployments overseas, you’re at a bit of a loss. You no longer have the importance of job roles so to be able to do that sort of thing again here in Australia – it really makes you feel connected again.

Fran Kelly:
You were a firefighter after that right?

Davina Pye:
Yes, that’s correct for 14 years now.

Fran Kelly:
How’s the community in Port Macquarie, responding to you and others being on the ground there with Operation ELLIOT?

Davina Pye:
Wonderful. They have been so supportive. From the residents that have been affected through to the councils that are trying to help, we’ve been invited by the mayor as soon as we got here to bring a team in. The community has been reaching out and they’re telling us their stories and asking for help or passing on their neighbors names that they know need help as well. It’s been a wonderful welcome.

Fran Kelly:
What is the effort required on the ground, how many are there on the ground as part of this operation?

Davina Pye:
At the moment there are 20 people. There’s veterans, veterans that are now first responders, first responders that are reserve. We’re getting out and we’re mucking out houses, most of the mud is gone already, but there is furniture to remove and walls that need to be pulled down and sprayed with anti mold.

We’re communicating with residents and just allowing them to tell their story and feel that they’ve been recognized and understood that they’re still there. There’s people that either don’t have the means of reaching out through not having mobile phone communications or don’t have vehicles to be able to get into the recovery centers – these are the type of people that we’re picking up on.

Fran Kelly:
The people who are stuck on properties, who might not have cell phones, who are isolated, how are you finding out about them? What are you doing for them?

Davina Pye:
We’re finding out through word of mouth, we’re finding out through their neighbors, they are getting passed on through the recovery centers and their hotlines – they feed the information to us. We then go out and do a damage assessment, we look and make a decision on whether it’s within our scope of practice. We can’t do everything, landslips and bridges washed out are outside our work. We have a very skilled workforce that can come in and help clear fences, pull out furniture, cut out trees over fence lines.

Fran Kelly:
Some of the some of the people that you’re working with in the operation will have issues of their own, and yet they’re hearing pretty traumatic stories from community members. I imagine people are pretty distressed there. You have a moment at the end of the day called reflections, can you tell me about that?

Davina Pye:
Reflections give the team the opportunity to share what they saw. In what way it affected them or what way that they oversaw a positive or a negative safety situation that they saw was managed well or wasn’t managed well. It’s a really good debrief, to hear other people’s stories and how they saw it and know that it’s okay to share that story and to participate in a reflection that could help each other through the day’s activities,

Fran Kelly:
That’s an interesting strategy, it’s an interesting sort of mechanism to use. Where did that come from that idea of the end of day debrief called reflections.

Davina Pye:
The actual story of how it came about, I’m not sure but I know we do it in Fire and Rescue New South Wales. We call it a ‘casual’ or debrief.  At the end of a job or difficult job that you’ve seen – to be able to feel that you can talk to each other about it and what you saw, or what you did, what you did well or what you did poorly, what you could do better next time, it is used to help.

Fran Kelly:
Good luck to you and the whole team there of operation ELLIOT for the cleanup and of course the people of Port Macquarie who need all the help they can get.

Davina Pye:
Thank you – homeowners can call us on (02) 9158 9382 or else go to disasterreliefaus.org/nswfloods.

 

Disaster Relief Australia has launched a flood recovery operation dubbed Operation ELLIOT to the Port Macquarie area. The operation will bring vital flood recovery to a community still recovering from the Black Summer bushfires of 2019.

The operation will deploy for 8 weeks and is initially based in the North Haven area supporting local areas of North Haven, Dunbogan, Kendall and Kew. This initial posture will leverage strong support from both Club North Haven and the Laurieton United Services Club.

Jobs include general flood clean-up activities such as damaged structure clearance of furniture and damaged walls, anti-mould operations, debris management and removal, chainsaw operations, fence line repairs, aerial damage assessments.

DRA brings help and hope to communities devastated by natural disasters and at the same time provides veterans the opportunity to grow beyond their military service.

Disaster Relief Australia CEO Geoff Evans says “DRA has received a warm welcome from the local community who have united together quickly after the recent floods to bring about a relative sense of normalcy. Still, hundreds of homes have been declared unlivable. Our volunteers will roll up their sleeves and provide real hands-on help where it is needed.”

Operation Elliot is named after Major Alban Charles Elliot, a war hero awarded the Military Cross and who served as longest running mayor of Port Macquarie from 1925 until 1936.

Major Alban Charles Elliot

Served
First World War, 1914-1918
Second World War, 1939-1945

Unit
53rd Australian Infantry Battalion

Final Rank
Major

Operation Elliot is named for Major Alban Charles Elliot, a war hero awarded the Military Cross and served as mayor of Port Macquarie from 1925 until 1936.

Service

Elliot enlisted in World War I in September, 1915. Three of his brothers were killed in action across both wars. He served on the Western Front with the 53rd Battalion 14th Brigade, 5th Australian Division and was promoted to Lieutenant on January 26, 1917.

Conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty

He was awarded the Military Cross for conspicuous gallantry for the operations and attack on Polygon Wood in 1917. At one point in the operation, the battalion was heavily shelled and its medic was unable to tend the several casualties. Elliot stepped in and personally attended to the wounded. Later, with his commanding officer a casualty, Elliot continued to direct the attack despite being shelled.

According to the AIF military records: ‘When the objective was reached, he personally organised and led a party to the old front line for ammunition, this he repeated on two occasions although the enemy were shelling the area through which he had to pass’. He also organised and led a party to bring in German machine guns and ammunition which were used against the enemy.

Port Macquarie notable personality

Major Alban Charles Elliot is remembered exceptionally well in the Port Macquarie region. Alban became Port Macquaries’s longest serving Mayor over 11 consecutive years. He was the first President of the Port Macquarie RSL sub branch. A series of surf boats carried his initials ‘ACE’ for several years.

In his obituary in the Port Macquarie News of Friday September 1, 1978, it was noted: that he was one of the most notable personalities to ever live in Port Macquarie. “To see him in action in Port Macquarie, it is easy to see the leadership qualities that won him the Military Cross”.

Major Alban Charles Elliot is laid to rest at the Port Macquarie General Cemetery with his beloved wife and son.