Port Pirie Storm

The Hon. G.G. BROCK (Stuart) (14:58): My question is to the Minister for Emergency Services. Can the minister update my community on the recent storm that hit Port Pirie on the weekend? With your leave, sir, and that of the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

The Hon. G.G. BROCK: Early Saturday night Port Pirie received a very large amount of torrential rain along with damaging winds over just a 10 or 12-minute period of time. In that time, in my area in particular, the hailstones were 5 inches deep on the ground itself—as I said, all in 10 or 12 minutes. I would just like to know the minister's response to that.

The Hon. R.K. PEARCE (King—Minister for Emergency Services and Correctional Services, Minister for Recreation, Sport and Racing) (14:59): I would like to thank the member for Stuart for his question and, just as importantly, for all that he has done over the weekend and into this week to support his local community. I don't think it would surprise anybody that the member for Stuart was hot on the phone, from the very first moment, to the Premier, to myself, to the Minister for Energy and Mining, to SA Power Networks and to our emergency services crew. Even more importantly, the member for Stuart was knocking on people's doors in the community, where he knew there might be vulnerable people, just to make sure they were okay and had what they needed.

I thank you for everything that you have done on that as well as for taking the time to meet with emergency services personnel with me on Sunday and taking me for a tour through the township to see all the different locations of damage and the severity of damage in the area and also visiting local businesses to hear the impact that it has had on them. I was particularly pleased that Happy Birds was a part of that trip; it's the best chips in the state if anybody does not know that.

As the member mentioned, we saw some significant weather events over the weekend. Within a very short period of time, Port Pirie experienced significant wind gusts of up to 122 kilometres, some in the township would say much stronger than that. They saw rain, they saw hail, and they even saw ice form on the road. There were a lot of different dangers that arose as a result of that, but predominantly the damage was around trees and powerlines that were down as well.

I am really pleased to advise that the government acted extremely quickly in this situation. We had a total of 207 emergency services personnel that came into the township to provide as much support as they possibly could, and they responded to over 379 call-outs and jobs in the local community. That is the most significant number of call-outs that Port Pirie has received, as I have been advised by the SES.

It is a real relief that nobody was injured in that time. It was really important that we did what we could to clear up the damage that was done and also make sure that residents had access to power as quickly as possible. It was a real pleasure that the member for Stuart was able to join me for an all-agency briefing to discuss not only the immediate needs but some of the potential needs moving forwards in the community. We did know on Monday we were experiencing a heat wave, for example, so having a look at what we needed to do to ensure that residents were as safe as possible and were informed of those options for them as well.

It was really great to have the member there because he was able to provide his insights and knowledge about the local needs in the township to these agencies. It did include Transport and Infrastructure. It included Housing, it included Health and it included Optus and Telstra, just to name a few, to give a picture of how many people we were talking to at that time to make sure that we were able to provide this service to the community in addition to our amazing emergency services. I mentioned how many emergency services personnel helped to attend at this site, and I just wanted to make it known that it was not only local crews that we saw; they were from metropolitan and broader areas as well. We did see members from Oakden, Salisbury, Wilmington, Campbelltown, Noarlunga, Whyalla, Napperby, Port Germein and Mount Barker, just as an example.

I would like to put on the record my deep appreciation for absolutely everything that they did through all hours of the night and all hours of the day to make sure that these jobs were actioned as quickly as possible. These emergency services personnel are incredible people who give up so much to keep us safe, and their work should be commended.