When members of the community think of the NSW State Emergency Service (SES) conducting flood rescues, they have very clear images of volunteers steering their vessels on overflowing rivers or hopping into floodwaters with their blue wetsuits on to rescue people in life-threatening situations.
What they don’t realise is that their duty of care extends beyond people to include animals, such as pets and livestock. In the recent flood events, one of their busiest two-day periods at the Penrith Unit saw them conduct 38 flood rescues within the Penrith local government area, 16 of which involved animals.
Flood rescues can be challenging to manage at times, even when the rescuees are humans and you can clearly communicate with them. Swap people out for animals, and you have a whole new challenge. That is trying to tell an animal that you are attempting to rescue them from an already distressing situation.
“I’ve always found it useful to have the animals’ owners on the vessels with the crew as they can help soothe the livestock and advise on their temperaments. With larger animals, like cattle and horses, we use a lead rope to guide them safely out of the floodwaters, though there is always a risk that they will try to get onto the vessel and seriously injure personnel on board” explained Andrew Bennett of NSW State Emergency Service – Penrith Unit, volunteer, and in-water operator.
One of the jobs that they had was at Llandilo, where eight sheep were stranded on a small pocket of land. The creek used to be a trickling stream, but now it had overflowed to engulf the local area.
“Joining Steve, Sally and I on the boat were four farmers who joined our methodical operation. Together, we caught the sheep and loaded them two at a time onto the Arkangel Rescue Raft, upside down and legs held together” he said.
“At that stage, the floodwaters were chest-high and moving slowly, and we were only 10 metres away from a dam and at risk of being swept into deeper waters. The whole operation took us two hours in rising floodwaters, but we were able to safely evacuate all the sheep to dry ground.
“It wasn’t until more than 12 hours later after our shift start that Steve, Sally and I were able to wrap up and congratulate ourselves on a job well done” Andrew continued.
Ahead of the next storm and flood event, they encourage animal owners to not only make plans for themselves, but for their animals, too. You can build your own Animal Emergency Plan and ensure the safety of your animals and livestock at https://www.ses.nsw.gov.au/get-ready-animals/get-ready-animals-splash-page/get-ready-animals/