Black Saturday report

The Royal Commission into the 2009 Victorian bushfires has now handed down its final report. Read it here. I think you would have to be a very unusual person to be a Commissioner, to sit through the most awful evidence imaginable and still turn your mind to making things better.

I hope these recommendations don't get buried and forgotten. I thought people could never forget Ash Wednesday's impact. I remember driving past the nightmare wreckage of Lorne and Anglesea - my grandparents' caravan was burnt out at Anglesea - and some weeks later going to a party in Bendigo with a friend, how we stopped chattering when we passed the first burnt-out chimney. There were no fit words.

We had a Royal Commission into Black Friday too; yet the same things happen over and again. Heroes like Mr Sigmund do emerge but over and over again the transcripts show rules becoming more important than their purpose. I have little faith that even with an election imminent the State Government will do anything except produce more wretched spin. Can you imagine a mum scrambling frantic kids into a car ahead of a firestorm sayng "now come on, we have to get to the Neighbourhood Safer Place!" Apparently there is no scope to nominate an area that's better than nowehere-at-all-to-run, so some towns don't even have a NSP. Places that saved lives aren't good enough.

Rest in peace and may we finally learn some lessons.

Remembering

A year ago today we had our housewarming. It was less organised than I'd wanted because the car broke down in the heat that afternoon, stranding me by the road. I was home late and far too hot. Instead of taking Princess Pea to her friend's birthday party I got a lift home from a kind stranger while the CFO took her over in a taxi. Instead of preparing salads and things and tidying up, I went to the bottom of the pool for as long as I could. The CFO kept his eye on me until I was no longer beetroot coloured and was again talking rationally. Each time I surfaced the air was apocalyptic hot.

It was a great party, faces everywhere, pool thick with kids and everyone mixing and talking and dancing and drinking. We love our friends.

While I was getting heat-stressed, homes and towns were burning. While we were cooling down and having fun, people were dying. The news took a day or so to come in. BY Sunday afternoon everyone know it was bad. By Monday that day was named Black Saturday and the toll was still rising.

A year on many of the survivors' stories have come out. When I find the link, there's a community-based book that can be ordered online. There's another more official one with funds going to the CFA. I'll edit this post later with the details.

If you have a strong stomach, read the Royal Commission's interim reports: http://royalcommission.vic.gov.au/Interim-Reports . But please do more than that. I'm old enough to remember Ash Wednesday as a young adult, and we all said then "never again". If enough people force things to be done, instead of the Commission's findings and recommendations being buried or ignored, maybe Black Saturday will be the last.

God bless and heal; rest in peace.