WITH the aftermath of the flooding in northern NSW, Hamilton SES unit controller, Tim Fry recently spent a week in the region helping out the local crews.

“I was sent up with a general rescue task force,” he said.

“So we were there to help with some outstanding jobs for the local units, as well as respond to jobs as they came in to give the local units a bit of a rest.

“We also went and did some damage assessments on some housing … we also went into some communities (that) were still cut off due to floodwater.”

With further work including sandbag preparation, temporary repairs, and door knocking on affected communities, Mr Fry said his days were long and busy.

“(We) generally got up about six, starting about seven, and then we were going until five or six each night,” he said.

Mr Fry said his previous experience of helping with the Gippsland floods last year in June helped give him some “background on how deployments work”, but the situations “were completely polar opposites”.

In Gippsland, much of the work had been cutting up trees, whereas the NSW situation was about dealing with prolonged flooding.

Mr Fry wasn’t the only person to head up north; he was joined by Hamilton SES unit officer, David Smith, and Portland SES volunteer, Colin Malin, after two other Hamilton SES members, volunteer, Nilo Polkinghorne, and unit officer, Travis Macintosh, had helped out in March.

He said it was typical of the SES to send people “here there and everywhere as required” and in his case, both this and last year’s deployments happened to be during his holidays from his IT job at Monivae College, but he still felt great about helping out

“It was definitely a unique experience,”

“(It's) helpful to be able to give back to not just my own community, but the wider Australian community in general.