EVACUATE!!

What would you take with you if you had to evacuate? It’s a tough question. And we can speculate all we like, but no-one can really answer that until they’ve been through it. Not to mention that each scenario is different anyway. Every year you hear of Mother Nature hitting various parts of the globe with floods, fires, earthquakes, cyclones, typhoons, hurricanes, volcanoes, tsunamis, even avalanches and landslides. Each having the potential for devastating consequences. And all of them life threatening and life changing. Australia cops its share of natural disasters, usually of the fire, flood and cyclone type. During the past week South Australia has been hit with the worst fires since the Ash Wednesday fire, which was our BIIIIG one back in 1983. In fact some people are saying this one was worse. Named the “Sampson Flat Fire” after the tiny town in the Adelaide Hills where it started it began on a 44C day and swirly winds – never a good mix. Starting at about 12.30pm on Friday afternoon, 2 January 2015, I can assure you that I never expected to have to evacuate my house less than 12 hours later. But that’s exactly what I did. Mr Lonetester is in the local fire brigade, and he was part of the crew that took over from the first responders, and did the night shift (initially from 9.30pm till 9.30am, then continued into the next shift). While he was out, I stayed up listening to the radio hearing that it was getting closer and closer. I also started to pack a few things … “just in case”. At 11.30pm Frinday night the local fire siren to evacuate sounded. So I loaded up my car, grabbed one of...

A Reality Check

Have you ever been in a situation that makes you really, and I mean REALLY, REALLY, REALLY think about things? Well this happened to me last week, and made me realise a lot of things. Firstly let me explain a few things. I live in the Adelaide Hills. I have for most of my life (I say ‘most’ as there was a short stint of metro living at one stage), and living in the hills brings with it the danger of bushfires. I was in primary school when when one of Australia’s worst bushfires ‘Ash Wednesday‘ hit, and I still have very vivid memories of that. Anyone who has been through a disaster (fire, flood, earthquake etc) will agree, that it is something you NEVER forget. Anyway last week was a week to go down in history. Adelaide’s history anyway. And hopefully one that won’t be repeated anytime soon (or hopefully ever). Adelaide almost broke their all-time maximum temperature of 46.1C. We didn’t quite, only making it to 45.1C. However apart from that, we did have 5 consecutive days of over 40C temperatures, which together with the hot nights making a decent sleep impossible, has been simply exhausting. By Thursday and Friday with the ground completely dried out from whatever little moisture might have been in it, together with high winds, the fire danger rating was sky-high (“catastrophic” is the technical term). And for the first time since Ash Wednesday I actually packed up some things and moved them out of my house. I decided to do that rather than face the regret of losing precious items later. Sure I had a “surely it won’t happen to me” feeling, but I also know that it only takes one spark,...