“THE weatherman doesn’t know Christmas Day from any other day when he sends the rain down.”
That was Kerang Fire Brigade Captain Ramon Steel’s philosophical view of the downpour that prompted his team to come to the town’s rescue over the holiday period.
A power outage on Christmas morning meant that the town pumps were not operational, so the fire brigade was called in to help pump water away from a number of streets. They also assisted the State Emergency Service with other callouts, including fallen trees and requests for assistance.
“Being Christmas Day, luckily we had 11 firefighters that were able to help me,” Capt Steel said.
“I rotated them so they all got home for Christmas lunch, and then a skeleton crew stayed there for the wee hours and packed up, and I think we left the fire station around 8pm that night.
“We just did what we did to help the community – it’s as simple as that.”
Capt Steel estimated that he and his crew pumped around 3.5 million litres of water over the two weather events between Christmas and New Year.
“While we couldn’t help the houses that were inundated, we stopped it from getting to many other houses,” he said.
The fire brigade also assisted with pumping water again over the weekend as well, moving as much water as they could from Ninth Street and Airport Road.
“Because we got up there early, we were able to keep the water at a level while it was pouring rain, and to my knowledge, there was only a couple of houses with minimal impact,” Capt Steel.
“We have saved many houses between us and the SES.”
