By Shelby Brooks and Taylah Eastwell
Heartless theives have targeted the Emerald SES unit as volunteers braced for damaging winds expected to hit the area on Wednesday 11 August.
A generator battery, car trailer, wrecked car and four mag wheels were stolen from the unit base over the weekend.
Unit controller Ben Owen said it was a “kick in the guts”.
“I’m pissed off,” he told the Gazette.
“We’ve madly got a mechanic up this afternoon to put a new battery in the generator and to check it.
“We can’t be losing power to the facilities on a night when we need to respond to people’s needs.”
A cold front cleared the east of the state Wednesday evening, with damaging north to northwesterly winds averaging 50 to 60km/h and peak gusts of around 90-100 km/h forecast across parts of East Gippsland, North Central, North East and West and South Gippsland forecast districts.
It comes just two months after damaging winds struck the Dandenong Ranges.
VICSES Emerald unit volunteers experienced one of the busiest 48 hours recorded in the organisation’s history, receiving over 800 calls for help.
Ben said the crew had already responded to eight call outs for help between 3pm and 4pm on Wednesday afternoon.
“There’s reports the power is out in Cockatoo already,” he said.
Although the car trailer was predominantly used to transport donated cars to use for road rescue training nights, Ben said it was the last thing the unit needed to worry about.
“Our concern now is they’ve had four or five days head start,” he said.
“Hopefully someone saw it and thought that’s strange.”
The car trailer registration was Z36890 and the stolen car was a 4WD that had been donated to cut up for training.
“Someone might have stolen it if they have the same kind of car or because parts could be worth something,” Ben said.
“With Covid lockdowns it’s been hard to pinpoint when exactly they were taken,” he said.
“We noticed an issue with our gate Monday but we think it was Friday night.
Ben said the frustrating part was the money needed to replace the trailer and generator battery.
“The bill will have to come out of money donated to us for other things,” he said.
“It’s really heart breaking to come in and see our unit in such a state. Incidents like this risks our volunteers’ ability to provide appropriate storm response and road rescue services during a vital time of year.
“We are all really devastated. After the last few busy months we have had, and with the current Covid-19 climate to top it off, it’s just really frustrating and ultimately it’s the community that suffers.
“Hopefully we can get the equipment back as soon as possible, and continue to do what we do best – support our local community”.
But in a heartwarming act of community spirit, listeners to Neil Mitchell’s segment heard Ben on radio on Thursday 12 and Friday 13 August, and the calls offering help and money came flooding in.
Ben said listeners offered the unit enough money to get a brand new trailer built, and one trailer-building listener rang in and offered to build the trailer at cost price.
“It all come together really nicely, it was really nice,” Ben said.
“We could have gone through insurance but there would have been an excess but now we are getting the trailer built at no cost to the unit,” he said.
According to Ben, the stolen trailer cost around $12,000 but will be built for $6,000, leaving the unit with some leftover funds to cover other stolen equipment.
