Far North SES veteran honoured

##MP##

Alan Green has seen more than his fair share of danger and disaster in his 37 years with the State Emergency Service.

He’s a familiar face and a comforting presence in the Cassowary Coast region, where Alan serves with the Innisfail SES unit.

Alan’s long and distinguished service has been recognised with a Life Member award, presented to him at a recent ceremony in Brisbane.

He says the recognition is very welcome, but it’s for his team members as well as him.

##BA##

“It’s a privilege and an honour to be given that award. It’s not just one person, it’s your whole team that you rely on.

“Having a good crew that you can rely on is what made it, and a good community. In a disaster, everybody got together.”

Alan joined the SES at Silkwood in 1985, when the local unit used to meet next door to his home.

##PQ##

Alan has learned many skills and had many “exciting and scary” adventures since then, including one memorable rescue operation on a flood boat.

“People just think you hop in a boat and away you go. You’ve actually got to read the water and have a lot of faith in your crew.

“There was one rescue, two of us in the boat, up Liverpool Creek in full flood.

“We had it on full power, revving right out, and we were probably only doing two kilometres an hour, the water was that strong.

“If we’d put that boat in the wrong spot, we would have ended up out to sea somewhere.”

Alan says one of the best things he’s done in the SES is searching for missing people and getting them home safely.

Not all searches end that way, and Alan says it’s tough on volunteers when that happens.

“The hardest part is being away from your family.

“With cyclone Larry, I was away from my family for five days.

“I didn’t get to see my house, which was fairly damaged, but my kids and wife got in and sorted a lot of it out.

“The best part is when you find somebody that’s missing, the joy of finding them.”

At the awards ceremony, Acting Commissioner Mike Wassing, said SES volunteers are motivated by a desire to serve their communities.

“It has been a difficult year for Queensland, and the SES volunteers’ dedication and community spirit has been on display in full force.

“I am always proud to see the lengths and efforts to which our members will go to serve their community.”

Alan Green says he loves helping communities, and he’s encouraged by their gratitude after major events.

“After Larry, we had a very self-sufficient 84-year-old woman who had put a tarpaulin on her own house.

“She came in to us, upset and crying, because she didn’t think she’d got the ropes tight enough.

“She knew that we were busy, and she didn’t want to be a hinderance to us.

“I sent a crew round. They only had to tighten them about a quarter turn. She’d done it right.

“A couple of days later, she came back with all these cakes and bikkies she’d made, without electricity.

“Things like that make it all the more pleasurable.”