General News
11 March, 2026
Storm on SES stand
GIVEN the wet and wild weekend preceding the Wimmera Machinery Field Days in the region, it was no surprise to hear from SES community engagement officer, Crystal Sanders, that many had approached their stand to ask about emergency response readiness.
“A lot of people have actually come up and inquired around how they could have been better prepared for what came through,” she said.
“It just comes around to making sure you've got the right (phone) numbers ready to go, making sure that your property is prepared for a storm,” she said.
“Things like packing away loose items, making sure that if you are in a floodplain area, that you do know your risk and how to prepare for that one, you’ve got sandbags ready, that you're prepared to move things off the ground if need be, and you evacuate early if required.”
She said they were also keen at WMFD to encourage people to volunteer with the SES.
“We’ve definitely had a bit of discussion around recruitment, and there are a lot of different roles for people when they join the SES, so they don't have to do everything that the SES offers,” Crystal said.
“So SES is the control agency for flood, storm, landslide, earthquake and tsunami, and we also provide support to CFA, Ambulance Victoria and Victoria Police around rescues.
“So all of those things that we offer, you don't have to do all of them, because we're volunteers – you can choose what you want.”
Crystal emphasised that there certainly were roles that were not field-based.
“A lot of our units are looking for admin support – so people that can support being able to help with the compliance side of things, making sure that people are right with all their checks that they need to have done, supporting with all of the other admin that comes with a volunteer unit,” she said.
“But they can also support with radio communications and community education as well – getting out within the community, raising awareness about what we do and how people can prepare things.”