SES Callouts

[squiddy]

Seriously... its a tree job. I don't know why everyone is having a go on this... tree jobs are the suck.

Quit your bitching, people. We are all here for the common good. Who gives a toss about tree jobs and who does them. If you want to cut up trees all the time, buy a Jim's Mowing franchise. Seriously, most tree jobs are council issues. If it is on council land and isn't blocking the road or on powerlines, the local council should be doing the job, not sucking volunteers in to do it.

[5271rescue]

Come on if some groups where to leave these trees for the local council to do then call rates would go down....But I have to agree tree jobs are council or TSA job if they are not on a house or poerwlines...

[Pipster]

99.9 % of the tree jobs my brigade goes to are trees on the road - with the bulk of them completely blocking the road.

We could call Tranport SA for the main road.   After hours ETA at least an hour, usually more.   Because of the nature of the area, it is a very long drive to go "round the block" - longer than waiting for the CFS to cut the tree up.

Same goes for Council (especially with some rationalisation of services, closures to the local depot)

Unfortunately, CFS  & SES have worn the brunt of rationalisation to State & Local Government Services - in that the volunteer services can respond far quicker than the other services who have responsibility for it.

And Squiddy - as for who give a toss as to who does a tree job  - well I do.   If I am on my way to work, and find a large tree across the road, I want it moved ASAP, so I can get to work, or to whatever I am going to.  Hence I do not want to wait an hour for one service to arrive to remove it, when the other service can be there in 10 minutes.....

Pip

[squiddy]

And Squiddy - as for who give a toss as to who does a tree job  - well I do.   If I am on my way to work, and find a large tree across the road, I want it moved ASAP, so I can get to work, or to whatever I am going to.  Hence I do not want to wait an hour for one service to arrive to remove it, when the other service can be there in 10 minutes.....

Which explains why most units/brigades can't find the damn trees in rural areas once they have been called, because some good samaritan or farmer grabs a chainsaw and cuts it up or drags it off the road with their 4WD.

But anyway, like I said, it is nothing for people to get so hot under the collar about.

[sesroadcrashrescue]

hay i have been reading a few of the messeages and well im abit disaponted in some of them there has been some talk about tree jobs SES are not responsible for trees that have come down unless there is a risk to the public for (example tree on a house or car or blocking a road.)

i have been with the CFS for six years recently left the CFS due to a safty issue to wich by brigade had no intention of trying to fix for example responding to a possible house fire with only 2 crew.)

i do not see a need to get rid of the SES the amount of gear in which is on our appliances at all tims would not fit on a CFS appliance brigades would need to have extra appliances built there for there would be the same amount of trucks getting around.

we also do fire assistance last summer i spent a week driving food around at wakerie to feed firefighters would any firefighter in here get of a truck to drive a 4wd around???

i am a RCR operator in a country unit we are very busy and sometimes have multiple jobs going including MVA's and storm damage and today a land search then very nearly a road crash

the SES are need in sa   

[sesroadcrashrescue]

i have said this so many times tree jobs are not an ses or cfs or mfs problem unless the pose a risk to public safty if its on the side of the raod or accros the foot path then its no problem if trafic can get past it with out a problem then its up to the council to move it not emergency services as we are not alowed to do the work of some one who is employed to do it

[Stefan KIRKMOE]

I agree, Trees down are not SES,CFS or MFS job unless there is a risk to the public etc. So when are CFS going to be put back on the paging for trees down and if there's no immediate risk, ie P3 / P4 why do SES get responded at all?

Further to this thread but on some what of a different angle.... I was driving near The Parade, NORWOOD a few months back. As I approached The Parade I could hear a siren, I sat at a crossroad whilst I could see in the distance what I believed was a police car travelling through traffic, all lights / sirens operating. Now lets set the scene more, it was 1pm on a weekday afternoon and very heavy rain, this was on the busiest part of the parade so quite an amount of traffic and pedestrians. As the vehicle passed where I was located I noticed it was an SES Staff vehicle.

So wondering what was going on when I got home  looked up the pager website wondering what was going on. The only job on the eastern side of the city at the time this vehicle was going P1 was a tree down, not on a road and no direct threat to public safety I have since found out.

Now maybe it's just me being crazy, but if you considered the nature, condition and use of road, amount of traffic on the road, amount of traffic reasonably expected to enter the road and all other circumstances.... Would you not consider driving in a manner dangerous? What requirement is there for a paid staff member to respond from the CBD, under urgent duty driving to a tree down and placing the public at risk?

Stefan KIRKMOE

(my views and opinions only!!!!)

[bajdas]

I agree, Trees down are not SES,CFS or MFS job unless there is a risk to the public etc. So when are CFS going to be put back on the paging for trees down and if there's no immediate risk, ie P3 / P4 why do SES get responded at all?

Further to this thread but on some what of a different angle.... I was driving near The Parade, NORWOOD a few months back. As I approached The Parade I could hear a siren, I sat at a crossroad whilst I could see in the distance what I believed was a police car travelling through traffic, all lights / sirens operating. Now lets set the scene more, it was 1pm on a weekday afternoon and very heavy rain, this was on the busiest part of the parade so quite an amount of traffic and pedestrians. As the vehicle passed where I was located I noticed it was an SES Staff vehicle.

So wondering what was going on when I got home  looked up the pager website wondering what was going on. The only job on the eastern side of the city at the time this vehicle was going P1 was a tree down, not on a road and no direct threat to public safety I have since found out.

Now maybe it's just me being crazy, but if you considered the nature, condition and use of road, amount of traffic on the road, amount of traffic reasonably expected to enter the road and all other circumstances.... Would you not consider driving in a manner dangerous? What requirement is there for a paid staff member to respond from the CBD, under urgent duty driving to a tree down and placing the public at risk?

Stefan KIRKMOE

(my views and opinions only!!!!)

I understand the priority to different tasking classification is being reviewed because of several questions, queries, incidents, etc, etc.

Note that not all SES Commodore wagons are paid staff. Some SES Units have them for crew & equipment transport. So I would not assume it was a paid staff member.

The other option is that the vehicle was traveling to incidents in another part of the city or near country region. Just because you saw them in eastern metropolitan area, does not mean the high priority tasking was in that area.

**my observations only & not based in fact**

[Stefan KIRKMOE]

confirmed SES staff member.... I formerly worked in CFS HQ when SES were still on L7 so i know many of the staff.... and well it was probably the only job from memory anywhere within a few hundred k's of the eastern side of Adelaide from memory. I did make follow-ups to see what was going on....

[bajdas]

confirmed SES staff member.... I formerly worked in CFS HQ when SES were still on L7 so i know many of the staff.... and well it was probably the only job from memory anywhere within a few hundred k's of the eastern side of Adelaide from memory. I did make follow-ups to see what was going on....

Hopefully then the person gets a rap over the knuckles....

[Alan J]

So wondering what was going on when I got home  looked up the pager website wondering what was going on. The only job on the eastern side of the city at the time this vehicle was going P1 was a tree down, not on a road and no direct threat to public safety I have since found out.

G'day Stefan
"You have since found out"...
Begs the question whether that was _known for certain_ by the responding organisation at the time?  How many silly jobs do other services attend P1, "knowing" that P1 is pointless, until the first arriving OIC eye-balls it & down-grades the job?  Done purely because the response plan - AFAs / nil injury MVAs / pile burns / etc - says it _might_ be more significant.

Glass houses, & the casting of first stones, etc, etc.

(of course, if the job was already assessed as no-risk and the driver was free-lancing, then he/she needs their bottom smacked.)
cheers
 

[SA Firey]

What is concerning is the almost daily occurrence of building impacts,seems drivers are gettting worse not better no matter how much road safety education is advertised

[Zippy]

Driving on Glen Osmond Road itself is a hazard just for sensible drivers. People dont know how to merge into right lanes these days!  Or simply the road hasnt been fixed from having parking filling *half* of the left lane.

[Dave O]

I agree, Trees down are not SES,CFS or MFS job unless there is a risk to the public etc. So when are CFS going to be put back on the paging for trees down and if there's no immediate risk, ie P3 / P4 why do SES get responded at all?

If a tree falls on a house, damage to roof and exposed to the elements, most of the time this should be a P3.
Agreed, more than likely not an immediate risk, but SES are responded to further prevent damage for example water entering the property, or just to simply make the home livable for its occupants..

Not exciting I know, and we may not be saving lives, but we are helping people..

P4, just MFS doing their job and passing on the tasking, we don't have to do a thing at our end but acknowledge and assess its merit..

[bajdas]

I agree, Trees down are not SES,CFS or MFS job unless there is a risk to the public etc. So when are CFS going to be put back on the paging for trees down and if there's no immediate risk, ie P3 / P4 why do SES get responded at all?

If a tree falls on a house, damage to roof and exposed to the elements, most of the time this should be a P3.
Agreed, more than likely not an immediate risk, but SES are responded to further prevent damage for example water entering the property, or just to simply make the home livable for its occupants..

Not exciting I know, and we may not be saving lives, but we are helping people..

P4, just MFS doing their job and passing on the tasking, we don't have to do a thing at our end but acknowledge and assess its merit..

The possibility that water entering a roof where the major electrical cables for the house are located, can increase the risk of electrocution or ceiling collapse onto people. Especially when majority of houses have ceiling insulation which absorbs and transfers the water.

When you speak to people with roof damage when they call in on the 132500 number, they do not understand the risk & evacuate the property.

Thus the debate between possible life threat (SES P2 response) or non-life threat (SES P3 response) response during storm events.

Either way, we are responded to limit property damage.

[Dave O]

Only if there were persons trapped would you need to go lights and sirens though...
The difference that a minute or two makes going P2 to a job like this isnt worth making it more dangerous than the job you are responding to..
Units need to evaluate the job and not just rely on the priority of the page they receive. SES get call back numbers for a reason.

[sesroadcrashrescue]

just because you make a call to the person means you can downgrade to non lights we are given a priority for a reason the answers that the call taker got determine what priorty you go not the crew that is responding only and on site officer can downgrade a crew

[Pipster]

I'm a little confused.....does that mean that only the call taker, or an SES Officer on the scene can change the priority that a crew responds on?

Or can the responding crew, upon speaking to the caller also change the priority that a crew responds at..?  (I didn't quite understand your post sesroadcrashrescue)

Pip

[SA Firey]

Either the Unit Manager or Duty Officer tell the crews what Priority to travel on

[sesroadcrashrescue]

when we get paged we have p1 p2 p3 p4 when its storm damge it get a priority p1 to p4 in stom damage the unit manager or who ever is in charge puts them in order to which we will deal with first any p1 job is first RCR is always P1 if its stormdamage we can be down graded however it can only be done by an OIC on scene or by adelaide fire if they get more info

[Pipster]

So the driver, or the OIC of the vehicle has no discreation at all in what priority they respond to an incident..  Is that what you are saying ?

[Dave O]

I would highly disagree with that
Unit manager and/or Duty officer has first descision as to what priority we respond...
And then as pip said OIC can make a decision.
MFS, as we are all aware, dont always get it right.

Especially in a multi tasking evening, what may have been tsked as a P2, and we only get to respond to it 30 minutes later, why the need for lights and sirens?

[CFS_Firey]

Especially in a multi tasking evening, what may have been tsked as a P2, and we only get to respond to it 30 minutes later, why the need for lights and sirens?

If it's tasked as life threatening, and you aren't able to respond until 30 minutes later, would you respond another resource to it in the meantime?

[sesroadcrashrescue]

ok take the ses out of it use a different service if you were a drug user and had been picked up by the ambos alot and you OD and there were tasked cat1 to you but they decided that they had been to you the day b4 on a cat 2 and nothing was worng to the point that you needed to be a cat 2 so this time even though its a cat 1 and your 15 mins away from there location under urgent driving and almost 30 normal driving the go hay its only them again lets go on a cat 3 and drive out to you normal speed dose the crew changing the priorty of the job real make sence just cause its a tree on the roof of a house and your tasked P1 dosent mean you can down grade to a three unless you have more information from a OIC who has already had a look at the job Adelaide fire dont always get it right but they go with what information they get from the caller same with saas same as when CFS had its own commcen and same with SES commcen most calls get put through a star system which will put it in to a catagory there fore giving it a priorty and best resorce for that job. 

[Dave O]

If it's tasked as life threatening, and you aren't able to respond until 30 minutes later, would you respond another resource to it in the meantime?

Probably,
But life threat with SES responded should also have a BRT or BWT with them
I suppose I was thinking more of the threat to property jobs ie flooding
Water might be rising whilst its raining, but after the 5 minute down pour and the rain stops, the water subsides and its no longer a priority job to protect the house..
Units can get 10 jobs like this in a 10 minute period if there is an isolated rain patch, so by the time it takes a unit to respond and make a call back to the owners we can find out the waters flowing away and downgrade ourselves...