For tomorrow’s Wear Orange Wednesday, SES volunteers and their families and friends don the trademark colour to fly the flag for the organisation once known as “civil defence”.
Wear Orange Day is part of Victoria State Emergency Service’s Week, with the colour highlighting the wide-ranging response capabilities required of volunteers and their community-based units at roadside rescues and during natural disasters.
There are 5500 volunteers attached to SES units across Victoria and more than 27,000 Australia-wide.
Craigieburn SES founder Paul Ledwich remembers the early 1980s when the local SES truck was parked in a member’s driveway when not in use and equipment was stored in sheds and garages.
That was before a railing was put on the median strip to divide traffic on the Hume Highway. Easter was the nightmare long weekend of the road accident calendar.
“Easter and Christmas … but that’s all quietened down now,” Mr Ledwich said.
These days, any time can be busy. Unit volunteers are on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year.
Mr Ledwich remembers using his then 13-year-old son Martin as “the patient” for members learning to bandage, test blood pressure and stabilise broken bones.
Now Martin is his unit controller, and first aid has become a lot more sophisticated.
So, too, has the SES network, with Hume council supporting units at Sunbury and Broadmeadows as well as Craigieburn.
Sunbury unit controller Anthony White wants as many Hume residents as possible to wear orange tomorrow, and then post pictures of themselves at work, school or play on to facebook.com/sessunbury
Craigieburn SES can be contacted at craigieburnses.com
» National SES Week details, ses.vic.gov.au
