Former Shepparton flood incident controller to help in Queensland cyclone

By Monique Preston

Jan 24, 2024

Helping hand: Brendan Corboy (second from right) with some of the contingent of Victorian SES members who have flown to Queensland to help during Cyclone Kirrily.

A former Merrigum resident and one of the incident controllers in Shepparton during the January floods has headed to Queensland to help prepare for an impending cyclone.

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Brendan Corboy, who now works for SES, was one of nine Victorians to fly to Queensland on Wednesday morning in the lead-up to Cyclone Kirrily hitting the Queensland coast.

Mr Corboy was the second of the incident controllers in charge of operations at the Shepparton Incident Control Centre in Shepparton in January as floodwater from the Goulburn River hit Seymour and Yea before travelling upstream to Murchison and Shepparton.

He is one of nine staff members from the SES, Fire Management Victoria and Emergency Management Victoria that make up the contingent sent to Queensland.

The Victorian emergency services will work in incident management roles, while colleagues from NSW will form ground crews.

Tropical Cyclone Kirrily is expected to make landfall on Thursday.

Heavy to intense rainfall is forecast to affect central and western parts of Queensland.

The nine Victorians will be in place on Wednesday night ahead of the potential impacts from the cyclone.

Victorian SES operations acting chief officer Alistair Drayton said he could not be prouder of the SES members for giving up their time to assist in Queensland as heavy rainfall was expected to hit the state later this week.

“I also want to thank their families at home for enabling them to deploy interstate and provide much-needed assistance at such short notice,” he said.

Mr Drayton said the Victorians would support crews in Queensland across a range of incident management team functionalities out of Mackay.