What we do

Community support at a glance

Community is at the heart of everything we do. We work alongside them to help them prepare for and manage their response to an emergency, both physically and mentally.

Community education

Community preparedness and planning

Incident response and support

Search and rescue operations

Medical emergency support

Bushfire support

We provide assistance before, during and after an emergency

Flood rescue

We assist in finding and rescuing people at risk from flood water, using specialist skills, techniques and equipment.

Land search

We support the NSW Police Force in their search and rescue missions for missing persons, vessels or evidence.

Land rescue

We assist in removing people and domestic animals from both actual and threatened physical danger.

Storm and water damage operations

We support the community during floods, storms and tsunamis in restoring lifelines and making temporary repairs to damaged property.

We work alongside local Emergency Service Organisations

NSW SES wants to work together with communities, to ensure they receives the best possible support. By working with a range of agencies, we’re able to deliver important assistance, together, including:

Bushfire responses with the NSW Rural Fire Service.
Responding to medical emergencies with NSW Ambulance.
Responding to crime and crash scenes, and managing traffic and crowds with NSW Police Force.
Delivering the pandemic response with NSW Health and NSW Department of Planning, Industry and Environment.

Preparing the community and supporting recovery

Incident Management

Incident management comprises the operational management structures and systems used by NSW SES in the execution of its command and control responsibilities and in support of other ESOs, to ensure effective and efficient operational response management.

Capabilities

Assessment and investigation
Evacuation management
Finance
Incident control
Incident planning
Intelligence
Inter-agency liaison
Logistics
Operations
Recovery planning
Resupply management

Operational communications

Operational communications involve the sourcing, maintaining and utilising of systems, equipment and resources to channel coordinated, timely, reliable, secure and actionable information into appropriate products. It provides a multitude of channels to enable communication with and across a range of stakeholders internally and externally.

Subcapabilities

Radio and website operations
Off operational data sharing internally and externally on our emergency service partners

Community engagement and partnerships

Community engagement and partnership builds communities’ understanding and acceptance of the risk that surrounds them as well as an adaptive capacity and capability to prepare for, respond to and recover from flood, storm and tsunami.

Subcapabilities

Community engagement and facilitation
Community liaison
Community profiling
Community skills analysis
Community skills building
Media and communications
Public information management

Recovery support

Recovery support references the role NSW SES plays in supporting governments in returning affected communities to their proper level of functioning after an emergency. NSW SES is predominantly involved in the beginning of the recovery process as the emergency transitions from ‘Response’ to ‘Recovery’.

Subcapabilities

Financial analysis
Impact assessment
Recovery arrangements

Research and hazard planning

Research and hazard planning encompass research, risk assessment, and planning for flood, storm and tsunami hazards to manage and minimise impact and risks within NSW communities. This includes the transfer of information and knowledge for the purpose of improving emergency management prevention, preparedness, response and recovery activities.

Subcapabilities

Consequence management
Emergency risk assessment
Knowledge management
Lessons management
Operational planning
Research
Scenario modelling