Water, Water Everywhere

Guess what...It's raining!

When the rain comes, so do the calls for help to Chelsea SES. On Sunday (22/11/2009) the jobs all seemed to arrive over a short period of time, from just before 10.30am with most completed by 2.30pm and crews back at LHQ and standing down by 3pm.

In all, 6 calls for help were received from Parkdale to Carrum with 3 vehicles and 8 members attending.

Chelsea Rescue 1 & Chelsea Transport Crews attend to a building damage job in Bonbeach.

Most jobs related to water entering properties through roofs, although at Parkdale Plaza, pumps had to be used to disperse water that was running in from the street and threatening a store. At a Carrum unit, a large section of ceiling had to be pulled down due to water entering the roof space and building up until it split the ceiling plaster and water began running through.

Member Steve Wall Assesses the damage as water enters a property in Carrum.

Doing what needed to be done to avoid a major ceiling collapse by removing the saturated section of ceiling plaster and insulation to make the area safe.

Sadly, as is often the case, at a couple of the jobs, simple maintenance issues could have either reduced the severity of the damage, or even eliminated the risk altogether. As Benjamin Franklin said so many years ago; "an once of prevention is worth a pound of cure"; how true; how very, very true!