The New Zealanders who’ve been called in to help with the record-breaking New South Wales floods say they’re taken aback by how bad the devastation is.
Speaking to 1News from the SES incident control centre in Parkes, Fire and Emergency deputy incident controller Gareth Hughes said their Australian colleagues have been stretched by this latest event.
“I mean, this is a huge event that’s been happening for a long time, it’s going to happen for a long time more,” he said.
“They’re tired and exhausted from a bit from doing this, but if you add up it’s not just this flooding event, it’s other flooding events and then there’s Covid, and then there’s other weather events, and then there was previous to that there was a quite a busy fire season. ”
“You’re looking at individuals that we’ve talked to have had 10 deployments in a row and these are big, big times, and they’re taken away from their families to help different communities.
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12 fire service staff are currently on deployment in New South Wales and will swap out with another dozen workers in two weeks’ time.
Hughes says there are already talks to extend the support from New Zealand.
“How that’s going to come about? I’m not sure yet, but that’s what part of our time while we’re here is to realise the relevance and see what we can actually do to provide that.
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Hughes said the 12 workers who’ve travelled to NSW have brought a piece of pounamu (mauri stone) with them on their deployment.
The 4kg stone, which is around the size of a fist, is brought on all major overseas deployments.
“It seems very Kiwi, I think it brings things a slice of home with us. ”
It has travelled since 2018 on most international deployments, going to Canada and plenty of places in Australia.
The pounamu was sourced from the Arahura River on the West Coast of the South Island.
“I’m not hugely spiritual myself, but is that you can feel it, if you know what I mean. ”
“You can feel its worth and you can feel its weight to it,” he said.
“This will be here the whole time the Kiwis are here, and when the Kiwis leave home or leave to come home, we will take it back with us. ”
The pounamu was blessed by Fire and Emergency New Zealand’s National Māori Advisor Piki Thomas..
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