Recovery Victoria: Neil Mitchell’s grassroots idea to help flood victims

Neil Mitchell has been inundated by flood victims who need help with simple tasks, and it gave him an idea.

He wants to set up a new organisation called ‘Recovery Victoria’ which can assist the SES with disaster relief tasks which are outside its remit.

“A huge gap is obvious in helping people affected by this disaster,” the 3AW Mornings host said.

Press PLAY below to hear Neil’s idea to help flood victims

“We’ve been contacted by so many people who want to help — they want to shovel mud, they want to fill sandbags, they want to drop off food — but there’s nowhere to go. There’s no coordination or plan.

“The SES is doing a great job but this isn’t their job. We need an agency to oversee this.

“We have enormous resources from people who want to volunteer, we need to harness that.”

Rochester man, Brad, said there’s a desperate need for volunteers to help with basic tasks.

“Nearly every house I can see has got rubbish, all their furniture, all their belongings are on the nature strip. It needs to be collected and we don’t have bodies to do that. Rain is coming later this week, and if we can’t collect it, and we have what we had last week, debris is going to be taking off all over town,” he told Neil Mitchell.

Image (background): Nine News