New recruit to the SES Member for Cootamundra Steph Cooke said the SES plays a vital role when naturally occurring incidents hit around the region.

“The main storm time-frame is that October to March area and these guys are extremely busy during that time and any extra support that we can lend them is very worthy,” Ms Cooke said.

The SES Young Unit has been very busy recently with a total of 26 call-outs since December, 11 of which occurred recently when Young was hit with strong winds at 2am in the morning.

“The storms cells that are going across the northern part of Australia its still very unstructured for us. We do get a few days notice on what’s likely to come through but unless you’ve got long-range weather forecasting - we do get that through the BOM (Bureau of Meteorology) but it can be a bit variable at this time of the year,” SES Controller Ros Bickford said.

The SES Young Unit responds to calls for help in relation to storm or flood incidents across the local area, residents do not need to reside in the town limits to receive help from their local SES unit.

Ms Cooke recently joined the SES Junee Unit and is very proud of doing so.

“I actually did so because I was becoming aware of the callouts of the SES were receiving and without being a member my hands were tied in terms of being able to help,” she said.

“I know how hard these guys work with call-outs at all hours of the day and night.”

Ms Cooke has invited anyone who is interested in becoming a recruit to drop into her office in Young or Junee and speak with her about her experience.

For further information or to find out how to become a recruit head to the NSW SES website at https://www.ses.nsw.gov.au/.