I rise to acknowledge the hard work of all those who responded to the 13 February storm event, the most catastrophic storm event that we have seen in more than a decade. Some of the hardest-hit areas include the southern half of my electorate, with winds of up to 130 kilometres an hour ripping up trees and taking down powerlines.
In particular I want to thank the Whitehorse and Monash SES volunteers who have spent days and days working tirelessly to keep our communities safe. For perspective, the Monash SES unit alone received over 1000 calls for assistance. That makes this storm one of the largest ever storm events the unit has had to respond to. To all our SES volunteers, I say a deep thankyou.
I also want to give a shout-out to the hundreds of line workers who have helped restore power to the homes across my electorate. Many of them are members of the mighty Electrical Trades Union, and I want to thank them for their work around the clock to turn the lights back on. With more than 530,000 Victorian households without power at the peak of the storm event, electricians and linespeople worked hard to connect Victorians back to the grid as soon as possible.
On another matter, I would like to congratulate the terrific Blackburn Orioles Baseball Club on a wonderful achievement with their 60th anniversary. What started as a small club back in the 1960s has blossomed into a fully fledged eastern suburbs institution. Blackburn baseball club has terrific teams of all ages, from T-ball to junior, senior and masters teams, all based in Vermont South. Congratulations to all the players and club volunteers, especially the Burners president Brooke Tierney and secretary Patrick White. It was great to catch up with all the club legends.
