Hundreds Rescued As Fire Crews Confront Ingham Flood Disaster

Fire and Rescue teams have been flying into Ingham from all over the state to help those affected by the devastating floods.

Senior Fire Fighter from Cairns Nathan Sandford was flown into Ingham from Cairns on Sunday afternoon.

Nathan said they worked from sunset to sunrise.

“Initially, it was welfare checks, and if anyone was unwell or in need of getting evacuated, we evacuated them,” said Mr Sandford.

“Unfortunately, due to a lack of resources on all emergency services parts, we had nowhere to take them. Once we got them to high ground and dry land, they were told to try and speak to family members or make their way to the evacuation centre if they could.  

“We took them somewhere safe because they were obviously in the lower areas, anywhere from a meter to maybe two meters of fast-flowing water through their houses or around their houses.  

“We used our motorised swift watercraft, which handles the fast-flowing water.”

Nathan said they had two crafts operating and his craft only evacuated between 20-50 people.

Calls for assistance were going through the Fire and Rescue Inspector Jack Emeleus.

“In a normal world, people would ring triple zero, Firecom would assign a job to the nearest truck, and they go and get the job. In this world, there are so many jobs, and we have boat crews, which have to be flexible; they don't know who to give it to,” explained Inspector Emeleus.

“Firecom pins me a job. We have a chat. I'm aware of where all my teams are at the moment. I look at the team that's most capable of doing that job because each boat has slightly different capabilities.

“I allocate the job, and then I have a triage list, which I maintain; I keep track of all the jobs, and when they're completed, the cruise advisor tells Firecom, we mark that off the list and go to the next job.”

Now jobs emergencies and evacuations have calmed down Inspector Emeleus said they are conducting damage assessments.

“We are doing damage assessments in between jobs, our crews this morning have been out to three different evacs or medical checks,” said Inspector Emeleus.

“We have replacement swift water teams arriving tomorrow, and their main tasking will be damage assessments, but they're all capable of doing rescue as well.

“We will have three motorised boats and three full teams in here, and another full team still in Halifax tomorrow, and when they're not doing emergency tasking, they'll be out doing damage assessments.

“My team's done about 350 damage assessments in the last 24 hours, and that information is available now to council and Ergon, who can make some decisions about what to do next.”

Inspector Emeleus said that although his team will be receiving relief, Queensland Fire and Rescue’s next job will be installing a flexible habitat that can accommodate 90 people.

“It is a large tent for 90 people, 30 of whom will be our staff who are managing the incident, and the other 60 beds will be available to SES volunteers to help with the cleanup,” said Inspector Emeleus.

“It’s going to be set up near the Catholic school, the college, that's our next major task.”