Swan Hill deployment a great learning opportunity

Swanhill ICC team

 

District 15 BASO Irene Keating shares her story about her deployment to Swan Hill Incident Control Centre (ICC).

 

Many of us are being deployed to incident control centres across the state and perhaps interstate. These floods are devastating to the communities impacted and I cannot begin to imagine the feeling of sadness and despair of returning to what has been your happy place; your place of refuge that houses your life’s achievements, memories and precious possessions of significance to find them drowned and destroyed in dirty and polluted water or washed away.

The  other side of these stories is the amazing community spirit that rises from the depths of despair. Neighbours helping neighbours, strangers volunteering to roll their sleeves up and do what they can to assist, acts of kindness from corners unexpected, donations and stories of survival against the odds.

Then there are emergency personnel like us from CFA who are deployed to incident management team (IMT) roles, and join with our partnering and supporting colleagues including those from Forest Fire Management Victoria, SES, Emergency Management Victoria, Victoria Police and our interstate counterparts.

While playing vital roles in these ICCs, we are also able to gain valuable skills and have mentoring opportunities that help us grow and develop.

Recently, I was given the opportunity to be part of a nightshift IMT at Swan Hill. I was deployed in my role as information and warnings officer (IWO), but the reality was at this time the continual live feed of information released from the Bureau of Meteorology replaced the need for this role. 

This presented me with the opportunity to be mentored in the Public Information Officer (PIO) role throughout my deployment by our very own PIO extraordinaire Anthony "AJ" Beacham. I feel that as I write this, I am paying for it (I just don't bounce back from a week's nightshift like I could have done once), but this experience was so valuable and I am grateful for the opportunity given.

I was also fortunate to be sharing the ICC with two different shifts of members from the Western Australian Department of Fire and Emergency Service (DFES), as well as, of course, members of the Victoria Police and FFMVic.  What a great bunch of people.

I recall starting at CFA and my desire to talk like a CFA employee using the terminology and acronyms like everyone else. Becoming qualified in my IWO role and playing in the public information space has taught me to stop thinking like a CFA person and stop using the terminology and acronyms like everyone else, because these roles require me to think like a member of the community - what would I like to know, hear and understand about the event that is happening around me and what do I need to do? 

Last week's opportunity certainly helped me understand this more clearly by gathering talking points and copying newsletters and useful flyers (sandbagging techniques) for our community liasion officers (CLO) to distribute at drop-in sessions/community meetings, etc. But it also challenged me to consider public information strategies moving down the track as our response to this incident moves to recovery - what can we do to assist the community to return home and continue their life as they now know it as soon as possible?

I am so happy to have been given this opportunity and thank AJ for his time, patience and mentoring. This week, I have also received my joining instructions to undertake the public information officer course at the end of the month. I look forward to undertaking this course and developing myself further in this role.

As a final point, as noted above, I have gained much from this deployment. There is one further lesson that I have learned: if you get a quiet moment during your night shift at 5.30am, don’t use the time to complete one of the compulsory online training modules because if you fail to get 80 per cent after two attempts, you get locked out.  I am now required to speak to my manager about this.

Just another laugh out loud moment.

 

Submitted by	Irene Keating and Jude Atkinson