When Queensland was devastated by deadly floods, the Lockyer Valley community banded together. Woman’s Day talks to the pair behind the relief effort Derek and Chris Pingel who are being honoured for their efforts and are still helping their community find its feet.
Derek Pingel still remembers the day his home town of 50 years was destroyed by an eight metre wall of water.
“My wife was at home and we were isolated but did not experience any damages. I was in Townsville I was stranded up there and she was stranded at home,” he said.
Although the pair was physically okay, they knew many others in their community, who they “knew very well”, were not.
“I was concerned for the community especially,” Derek said. “We knew the people who were killed and affected by the floods.
“It was devastating to see the properties that I had grown up around all my life destroyed by an eight metre wall of water in a short amount of time.”
Being an active member in the community Derek decided to call the council mayor to see if he could help in any way.
“When I got back to my house I said I would call the mayor and I would offer some assistance, but Chris said for once don’t try to be in charge,” he laughs.
“So I said okay, but the mayor called both of us in and when they said they desperately needed someone to coordinate the relief we both said yes straight away.”
The pair, who have been married for 33 years, took on the mammoth task of running the volunteer and relief effort of getting the town of Lockyear Valley with its 20,000 residents back on its feet. They suddenly found themselves in charge of 600 volunteers, five large storage facilities filled with donated equipment that needed to be sorted through, and two distribution centres.
Their incredible effort has earned them a nomination as finalists for the community spirit national medal, as part of the Pride of Australia People’s Choice National Medal 2011.
The pair’s first task was to established a needs assessment program which allowed them to determine the needs of each individual.
“It was very intense when we started as we had to sort it all out, know what we had and know what people needed,” Derek said.
“We had to put our business and our lives on hold, but you do it, you do it to help your mates in need.”
The huge task not only took a toll on the pair physically, with Derek and Chris working from 6am to 1am every day, the emotional toll was also extraordinary.
“We saw the enormity of the task before us and saw there was no point being emotional. We had to detach ourselves from the emotional situation,” Derek said.
“Our task was to make life better for the people affected in the community and help them start their lives again immediately.”
To date, Derek and Chris along with 600 volunteers, who also worked tirelessly throughout the relief effort, have helped 1100 families and are still helping.
From five storage facilities and two distribution centres they have worked their way down to one distribution centre which continues to hold items for about 80 families from the area who are still trying to find a permanent home.
Derek believes the district has done fairly well to recover from such a disaster.
“The incredible generosity of individuals, clubs, organisations and business has been outstanding,” he said.
And he has great praise for his wife Chris.
“She is one of a kind; I would be lost without her. We have been in business together for 33 years. She works equally as hard as I do and she is a tremendous organiser,” he said.
“People often ask us why are you still doing this and I say ‘if we don’t, who will?'”
“It’s a great feeling to help others.”
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