But, this week marks three years since Maitland’s biggest deluge since 1955.

Ian Robinson had been the Maitland State Emergency Service unit controller for all of four weeks when the Superstorm of April 2015 hit.

The subsequent floodwaters claimed four lives, caused $800 million damage, and left 150 people homeless.

If there was any kind of deep end in the life of an SES member, this would be it.

At the three-year anniversary this week, the team leader reflected on the most challenging time of his career.

Related content: Photos from the April 2015 superstorm aftermath

Formerly a team leader at Newcastle, he was accustomed to climbing roofs and swinging chainsaws alongside his fellow volunteers.

But, there was no guessing how huge an impact the storm would have a month after he took on the top job.

“I coordinated rosters and all sorts of things that were new to me, but I had a really great team in the Maitland unit and they all really pulled together,” Mr Robinson said.

“Maitland actually had the best statistics they’d ever had in terms of the rate of clearance of the jobs, the number of people we had out on the field, and the speed with which we were able to get out and get things done.”

Related content: April 2015 Superstorm was chaos | photos

To say they had a lot of work to do would be an understatement.

Mr Robinson said there were more than 1200 jobs from the “absolutely phenomenal” team, with support teams arriving from as far as Lightning Ridge and Broken Hill.

At one stage, he was coordinating about 500 people. The sheer volume and size of trees slung everywhere was a shocking sight for Mr Robinson.

Mr Robinson said the superstorm was a steep learning curve and that the SES as a whole has also looked at their processes in the three years since.

“In the aftermath, the SES as an organisation identified there were some things we could have done a lot better,” he said.

“There is no question that our field teams absolutely know what they’re doing.

“I ended up being given a commissioner’s citation commendation for service for the way I handled it, but in all honestly that commendation should have gone to the whole unit.”

Read more: Superstorm – The Hunter’s chaos