The state’s newest State Emergency Service Unit is officially open.
The $5 million Gawler SES Unit features an operations room that can function as an incident control centre during emergencies, two-bay vehicle storage for appliances, and outdoor training, sandbagging and emergency staging areas.
And the state-of-the-art facility has been embraced by the community, with 30 local volunteers undergoing training in recent months to ensure the unit would be ready to swing into action as soon as building was complete.
The new recruits, supported by a dozen additional volunteers transferring from o
ther sites including the Salisbury SES Unit, have already begun responding to requests for assistance, including a storm event which hit the northern suburbs last month.
The Gawler unit will ease pressure on the surrounding Kapunda and Salisbury SES units and help deliver faster responses in the rapidly growing area. It will cover about 2400sq km, from Inkerman in the west, down to Springtown in the east, Tanunda in the north and Penfield in the south.
SES Gawler Unit Manager Chris Noble-Banks said that prior to the opening of the Gawler unit local issues were usually responded to by SES Units based in Salisbury, Copper Coast or Kapunda.
"This region has become a major area of growth in recent years, and with increased growth comes increased demand for emergency services," Mr Noble-Banks said.
"As the SES’s 69th and newest unit in SA, Gawler has boosted our available local pool of volunteers and will also reduce the amount of travel time required to provide help.
"It’s good to give back to the community. As a group we have been learning lots of new skills over the last few months and we are all looking forward to putting them into practice and getting out there and helping people."
Anyone interested in joining the SES or finding out more information is encouraged to visit the South Australian State Emergency Service website.
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