They’ve seen fire and they’ve seen rain

By Bridget Cook
The Chapel Road, Keysborough, premises were inundated with about more than half a metre of water during the torrential rain.
Keysborough CFA captain Leo Rischitelli said the station had suffered between $30,000 and $50,000 worth of damage in the storm.
“All the cabinets and paperwork were damaged, the carpets, internal walls, the office, the fridge, basically everything in the kitchen was damaged,” he said. “Almost everything inside the headquarters was lost.”
Trucks were saved, however, they were moved to other locations.
Mr Rischitelli said members tried to save the place but, after their attempts failed, they decided to give up.
“Initially, we tried to salvage the station, but when that became a lost cause, we gave the troops the order to pack up and move out and try and assist the community,” he said.
Mr Rischitelli said the flooding was heartbreaking.
“I’ve had about 20 years’ service with the CFA in the area,” he said. “Never in my time here have I seen anything like this.”
Mr Rischitelli said the unit had now started with the clean-up process.
“We were operating out of temporary accommodation at some of our members’ homes for about 12 to 18 hours,” he said.
“But once we were able to get back to the station, we cleaned out the engine bay and started with the cleaning-up process.
“We are now back operating at the site.
“The CFA was terrific, they jumped on board really quickly and got the ball rolling. They had assessors out to assess the damage and had cleaners to assist, all within 24 hours of it happening.”
Mr Rischitelli said it would take up to two months before everything at the site returned to normal.