Friday 20 December 2019

Smoke, continued ...

I've already written about the problems of smoke from bushfires being blown in from New South Wales.

The problem has not gone away - we're still getting smoke blown in, and of course it's worrying, very worrying.

I've written elsewhere about fire planning for the historic site I volunteer at, and unlike all the other times when I went through disaster planning when I was working, this one seems horribly real, and reveals gaps in our planning - fundamental things like which vehicles will we have available and what can we fit in them, especially given that the evacuation might not be as orderly as the paper plan suggests.

But despite everything we're still here. Wheezing a little - you can even hear the cat wheeze when he purrs - but surviving.

Yesterday, we'd arranged to go out to dinner at our favourite restaurant in town for a private pre Christmas treat. And before we went out I did something I've never felt the need to do before - I downloaded the emergency services app to my phone - just because.

While we were at dinner, a fire service truck came up the street, for a moment we almost panicked at the sight of it - we didn't realise, but the fire service volunteers were having a kids's party and fund raiser  at the pub next door, and of course Santa came by fire truck.

What was remarkable was the number of people, myself included, in the restaurant who got up and went out to put a ten or twenty dollar bill in the collection tin.

People are worried ...


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