Wood samaritans thanked

By Lachlan Ellis

A Korweinguboora man has thanked Disaster Relief Australia workers for their mammoth effort cleaning up his property, and many others around town, following the storms of the past few years.

Charles Hall has praised the efforts of Disaster Relief Australia workers, who have been hard at work cutting up tonnes of wood from his, and over a hundred other locals’ properties, which fell during the storms of 2021 and 2022.

“We’ve been very happy that they’ve come out to help. We’re so pleased around here with what they’ve done, they’ve helped a lot of people out…they’re a bloody good bunch of people,” Mr Hall said.

“At the moment they’ve been here from 9 o’clock in the morning, and then they generally stay until about 4 o’clock. Sunday when they were out there was hail and sleet and everything, and I said, ‘come under the shed undercover’, and their supervisor said, ‘no, they have to learn to work under all conditions’.”

Angela Hart is the Project Coordinator of Disaster Relief Australia’s work in Korweinguboora, and said the community’s response made the hard work worth it.

“From the storms in June 2021 between Moorabool Shire and the other surrounding shires, we’ve set up an operating base in Tylden. Each week, each wave of teams of about 10 to 15 people come out and attend jobs either removing debris off the sides of fences and boundaries, or crosscutting as we’re doing today and stacking wood. There’s so much timber on the ground that needs to be stacked up, so homeowners have piles of wood for the next few winters,” Ms Hart told the Moorabool News.

“We had contractors come in starting about two months ago using their big excavators to move and remove the fallen trees, and put them on the ground for us. We’ve moved tonnes and tonnes, just too much to comprehend. It’s cyclonic, you can tell, the way it’s affected people’s land…there’s a lot of people still moving on from those storms.”

Ms Hart said the project began last October for disaster assessment to determine how many workers would be needed and for how long, with physical works beginning a couple of months ago with contractors, and a month ago with Disaster Relief Australia workers arriving in Korweinguboora themselves.

“It’s a bit of a process, and it’s been a long wait for the people affected by the storms, but unfortunately this is the safest way to manage and coordinate it. Surprisingly the community response has been amazing, people are still hurting and still angry, but that’s turned around once we got on the ground and they’ve been able to see the work taking place,” Ms Hart said.

“I live in the area as well, I wasn’t as badly affected as some other people, but there was a bit of throwing your hands up in the air and thinking ‘well they’re never going to come’…but as soon as people have seen work beginning and excavators coming in, we’ve had a lot of positive feedback, phone calls, emails, et cetera.

“They’ve been overwhelmed, we’ve had tears…I’ve been in tears seeing people’s responses as well, it’s been quite moving.”

Monday 15 May was the group’s last day in Korweinguboora – “after a break the Disaster Relief Australia workers will head over to South Australia to help there”, Ms Hart said.