Siren Tides

It’s been a shit of a week. I don’t say that lightly. The whole world over it’s not been an easy one. Ice and Floods in the UK, Twisters and Ice in the USA… hell and high water here (literally – Bushfires all over Victoria and some in New South Wales, South Australia.  Floods in North Queensland…).

I can barely stand to think about much of it.

Every time I see the news or a bushfires appeal ad, I see pictures of the decimated Marysville, Kinglake… and others. Every time I wake I dread the possible rise of dead found. The past few days it’s been nothing, but that doesn’t mean much. Too many are missing for the toll to stop at 181.

Every night I go to sleep wondering if one of the fronts will reach my friends and I’ll never hear from them again. Every day I thank my lucky stars it didn’t happen here, in Forbes. And I feel horribly guilty.

I don’t know any of the people that died. I’ve never been to Victoria. I have no reason to feel so horrible, and grieve for people I would have otherwise probably never heard of. But they are Australians and in some small way, friends, mates, comrades… and we help each other here in this country. People did what they could last week. They tried, they did their best in situations never seen or considered before.

We’re lucky more aren’t dead.

But Gods I feel awful for the people who are.

You watch it on the news, you offer support in whatever way you get. You try not to hurt them more than they are, the survivors are scared enough – mentally, if not physically as well.

And you go to sleep and pray that it doesn’t happen here. Because you’re scared, beyond reason that it might – despite the fact the fires are hundreds of miles away and not as bad as they were. Despite the fact it rained today.

Because it’s worse than imagination.

Articles like this one make it a bit more clear, but they’re hard to read.

The town is a morgue. How many dead bodies here lie untended under sheets of corrugated iron and on the sides of roads?

Its crime scene status, which quarantines the town from visitors, will allow ugly rumours to baste, such as the supposed death of 100 people in the Anglican church. Yet right now, no one here at the oval munching on biscuits and cakes taken from the Marysville Bakery (the absent owners won’t mind) is trying to grasp the magnitude of the disaster.

They can’t make sense of it. Not now. Maybe never. They have lost their homes. They don’t know where their friends are.

We’re hurting. Australia sits and watches in fearful awe as things no one could have predicted kill our fellow Aussies. We feel helpless, useless. We don’t like it.

I don’t like it.

But it’s a tradgedy thats no ones fault… not really. I wish people would stop playing the blame game. The embers aren’t even settled yet.

I’ve been debating what to post on here for a day or so now, for those of you who don’t know Australia is currently going through the worst bushfire season in recorded history. The fires are mostly focussed in Victoria, and as of writing this the official death toll is at a staggering 181 and expected to rise as high as 300 (latest estimate). How this horror story of a firestorm began isn’t quite clear, but there are believed to have been arsonists and possibly other, more natural causes.

Not that any of the causes make the fires more tolerable. This is the single largest loss of life in Australia during peace time. Not to mention that it has displaced thousands of Victorians when their houses got burned to the ground. Whole towns are gone… I don’t really know how to describe this: Horrific, tragic, terrifying, an atrocity, hell, unimaginable… but the words still aren’t adequate. There are whole towns just gone.

TOWNS.

There’s fires in my state (NSW) too, but they aren’t half so bad and no one has died yet, that I’m aware. It’s… ugh. I don’t know.

Theres smoke outside coming all the way up from the Victorian Fires^[i]…

I’m never going to explain it right, or finish this post. So I point you in the direction of a much better one about the fires: here.

Bushfire Hotline – 1800 240 667
Victorian Bushfire Fund – 1800 811 700
Concerned about family or friends? 1800 727 077
Condolence Book – Share your sorrow over the tragedy
Urgent threats – latest information
Transport updates from VicRoads and V/Line
Latest updates from the CFA

Notes

1. or there was when I started writing this… its not the most fun thing to write and has been in draft for a couple of days [↩]