GO GEORGE to the rescue
Bus drivers’ scheduled routine of driving a bus on a familiar route according to a fixed roster was instantly disrupted when yet another devastating wildfire broke out in the George area and adjacent communities almost two weeks ago.
The GO GEORGE bus service was deployed to help evacuate people from threatened areas in and around George and as far as Rheenendal.
At a joint stakeholder briefing with premier Helen Zille on Monday, Gerhard Otto, manager of the Garden Route District Disaster Management Centre, said it is amazing to have an asset such as the GO GEORGE bus service that can be activated speedily in emergency situations like this, as well as last year’s fires in Knysna and Plettenberg Bay.
Moving hundreds to safety
GO GEORGE was put on standby from Sunday night, 28 October. Over the next seven days, the bus service assisted in evacuating almost 700 people from threatened areas, including Blanco where elderly people and school children were transported to safety, students from the Nelson Mandela University, patients from the Bergville Sub-acute Hospital in Denneoord, and residents of Rheenendal, Jonkersberg near Geelhoutboom.
According to James Robb, GO GEORGE manager, the management of bus operating company George Link announced this week that they will carry all costs of the evacuations.
“This announcement - that they don’t want to make money out of other people’s misfortune and loss - warmed our hearts. It was humbling to serve the community in partnership with George Link and their committed bus drivers, alongside such a dedicated emergency response
While most Georgians were watching the game between the Springboks and England, donations for the brave men and women battling the recent wildfires in George were still streaming in.
On Saturday 3 November, the PE branch of Crossroads, a logistics and supply chain management company, donated and delivered nearly 1 000 litres of water to firefighters in George. The water was delivered to Working on Fire's (WoF) base in the Witfontein nature reserve. team.
“The memories of the June
2017 Knysna fires are still fresh in everyone’s memory, the familiarity of being on standby day and night and saying ‘yes, I’ll go’ without thinking twice… This past experience and the entire operational team’s dedication resulted in a well-oiled exercise - we were able to send buses to communities that needed to be evacuated within minutes of receiving a request,” said Robb.
He lauded the “real heroes” in the front line of the fire and fighting disaster from the air. “What GO GEORGE contributed is such a drop in the ocean; we drove past men and women tirelessly fighting the fire day and night in suffocating smoke, getting very little sleep over an extended period of time while the fire lines just get longer and wilder. They are the heroes.” Brave firefighters received approximately 1 000 litres of water from the Crossroads branch in PE.