The NSW SES is celebrating 60 years of service this year, the organisation began in 1955 following disastrous floods across NSW that caused major loss of life as well as massive damage to property and infrastructure. The NSW SES has grown and diversified since its inception and has been instrumental in the response to many disasters and emergencies.
The NSW SES is the combat agency for Floods, Tsunami and Storm operations. The SES also provides emergency response in the areas of road crash rescue, vertical rescue, flood rescue, land searches and many other supporting roles to other Emergency Services. The SES volunteers in their orange uniforms (jaffa’s) are often referred to as the “Swiss Army Knife of the Emergency Services”.
For me the SES has been a part of my life for more than 22 years. Through this series of Geo-Art caches I want to share some of my experiences and the roles of the SES.
For years the SES has used the competitive arena as a way of testing its skill level against other SES Units, other SES Regions and Nationally against other states. In other areas of expertise SES teams compete against other Emergency Services in Road Crash Rescue, Vertical Rescue and Navigational competitions. Personally the competition arena has been very gratifying for me having successfully competed at a National level in General Rescue where we were victorious in 2003 and numerous wins in the Emergency Services Navshield navigational event.
