WINGHAM NSW AND THE 2021 FLOODS LIZ JARVIS, PRESIDENT WINGHAM CHAMBER OF COMMERCE
It’s Saturday morning at 6 AM, I am looking forward to sleeping with all this rain we’ve had for weeks and then the phone rings. It’s my son, “Mum you better get down to the office and check, get your computers and files up high!” Surely the water wouldn’t be coming to my office if it is that means many people around me are already flooded. Sure enough the water was higher than I’ve ever seen it. People heading into the Main Street we’re having to be flagged down so that they didn’t drive into the water, you couldn’t see it in the dark. It’s quite surreal when you slowly start to realise how many people would be impacted. And it’s hard to know what the right thing to do is when you’re a giver. I recall having the feeling of just wait, look after yourself first and where you are needed after that would reveal itself. As the morning progressed it became apparent that today I would be wearing
my Vinnies volunteering that hat. The reason, despite having stepped back from conference volunteering, I still held a key to the office which meant I could access the shop. Across the road there was a bit of commotion as one of the shop owners realized no one had seen the fellow who lived at the back of the shop next door. He was still inside and needed assistance to get out the water had risen while he slept. Soon our local offduty policeman, our fire brigade and SES we’re on hand to help this fellow to escape his flooded home. Once that was done I spoke with the SES and advised that I had a key to Vinnies and asked how I could best help. It was then I discovered that the Evacuation Centre had been set up at the Golf Club and the best thing to do was head up there to see what they needed. As I drove up to the Golf Club in front of me was a table top Ute traveling very slowly with a lot of dogs on the tray and
a person reassuring those dogs as they slowly made their way to the evacuation centre. Although they were a lot of people at the evacuation center it seemed calm and well organized. Our town Wingham was completely cut off from all in all directions. Fortunately we have locals that volunteer for Red Cross and employees of the Department of Justice and here they were doing what they trained for. Just over a year before they had been doing the same for Bush fire evacuees in a different evacuation centre. The manager of our Vinnies Shop and the head of our Vinnies conference were cut off and unable to come to town to coordinate support for flood victims. We looked on helplessly as a number of businesses became inundated with water but there was nothing we could do until that water subsided. Modern technology comes into its
