Australia burning: bushfire crisis spreads

Peaches LaTour said:
I have always wanted to visit and the one time when had the money to go and enough vacation time from work to go, I was diagnosed with cancer. That killed that hope.

Some day. Hopefully. Australia is at the top of my Bucket List.
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If you do and come to Hobart in Tasmania I can be your tour guide :)
 
alilou said:
Oh and I read something like you had to have a bill, or something like that with your address on it to prove you lived where you lived to get the compensation, as if you'd think to take something like that with you while you're evacuating your home and hoping not to die.
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Wouldn't your address be on your driver's license though?
 
MacMadame said:
Wouldn't your address be on your driver's license though?
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Oh I imagine so. It's was just a recounting on one person's adventure trying to get the promised funds that was shared on FB and I gather she had nothing on her that was good enough. Maybe she didn't grab her DL. It's been/still is pretty apocalyptic, and people aren't always organized, not even in ordinary life lol.
 
I'm sure some people don't grab sensible things. OTOH, I can't imagine not grabbing my phone and my purse. So I suspect most people do have their driver's license. Maybe she had moved and didn't have the address updated yet though.

Also, we pay most of our bills online and so can go online and grab copies whenever and wherever we want.

For me, the money I'd have to spend would be the killer more than the paperwork. You'd be paying for things twice and have to replace pretty much everything.
 
MacMadame said:
I'm sure some people don't grab sensible things. OTOH, I can't imagine not grabbing my phone and my purse. So I suspect most people do have their driver's license. Maybe she had moved and didn't have the address updated yet though.
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One of the big problems they had on the South Coast - which is where a lot of people, especially from Canberra, go to retire - was the number of people who didn't put their super-important medications in their go bags and thus ran out of the house without them. The strain on our health system has been enormous.

Oh and just so anyone watching the maps knows, Orroral Valley and Clear Range are the same fire, not two separate ones that linked up. For some reason, the NSW RFS decided to give it a different name when it crossed the border into their jurisdiction.
 
Yes, but my point is that not being able to prove your house burned down would be rare, not the norm.
 
alilou said:
And I guess my overall point was that the govt is doing little to help people and making what help there are offering very hard to get.
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That is deplorable. They know these people had to leave in a hurry. The least they could do is to make it easier. The govts (all levels) do have copies of licenses, tax notices, utility bills etc etc.
 
It is unrealistic to expect people who are fleeing bushfires to remember that they must take their licence.

They should be able to verify via other means.
 
Something good: the govt sent in 3000 army reservists to help with rebuilding.
www.facebook.com

3.3K views · 129 reactions | ARMY LENDS HELPING HAND IN ORARA VALLEY | Army reservists have been deployed across the country to assist fire-affected areas. The mission to help rebuild communities in the Orara Valley hits... | By ABC Coffs Coast |

Army reservists have been deployed across the country to assist fire-affected areas. The mission to help rebuild communities in the Orara Valley hits...
www.facebook.com www.facebook.com
Something not so good: the army reservists are paid while the firies (volunteer rural fire fighters) who are fighting the massive fires anywhere from 12 to 18 hours a day are not :(

ETA: Just in case you still want to read more about the fires here's a truly heartbreaking personal account of the new Year's Eve (and a bit preceding) fires, including what the NSW and Federal governments did, and mostly didn't, do.

www.themonthly.com.au

Living hell

Caught up in the chaos of the catastrophic bushfires on the NSW South Coast, the author experienced the terror of those whose homes and loved ones are threatened, as the failures of leadership became all too real
www.themonthly.com.au www.themonthly.com.au
 
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Just coming here to be happy about the rain. How much has it helped?
 
Aceon6 said:
Just coming here to be happy about the rain. How much has it helped?
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Problem is that it's not raining everywhere. I know it's bucketing in Sydney today; but I am just 300kms south and we have had very little. Enough to make the ground wet, no more. Many places haven't got any.

We would probably need a week or more of constant, steady rain to seal the deal.

The other problem is that the whole country has been so dry for so long it's just running off, and not sinking in at all. Where it sinks in is the ash...turning it to a dangerous treacherous sludge.

I know the cooler weather is helping them keep the Orroral Valley fire from encroaching too much more. We have to hope that it will last and we don't get another bad break.
 
Models have a cyclone paralleling the southeastern coast of Australia on the 14th-16th....
 
My friend in Bargara (Queensland) has been posting pictures of flooded yards.

The same one who posted pictures of kangaroos eating grass in people's backyards during the drought.
 
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Aceon6 said:
Just coming here to be happy about the rain. How much has it helped?
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Well Warragamba Dam, which supplies most of Sydney's water is up to 63% capacity from 42%, so that's something!

We had over 279mm (11 inches) of rain in 36 hours. Whilst I'd prefer that amount of rain was more spread out I'm not about to complain.

This image has been doing the rounds on Facebook. It does sum up our weather quite nicely.
 
News outlets in the US are reporting that all fires are “substantially contained”. True?
 
If anyone wants to watch Fire Fight, it is being shown on Channel 7 in Australia now.

They just opened with a heart-wrenching montage set to the opening of Bohemian Rhapsody.

Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? Caught in a landslide...no escape from reality.
 
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Queen and Adam Lambert completely stole the show. They actually performed the Live Aid set! Almost exactly as on that day in 1985. Started with Bohemian Rhapsody, then transitioned mid-guitar solo to Radio Gaga, then they dimmed the light and had the video of Freddie doing the EY-YO with the crowd, then they did Hammer to Fall, then Adam gave a little speech, then they did Crazy Little Thing followed by We Will Rock You and We Are The Champions.

Probably the moment of the day though, came right at the end. John Farnham (and wow he is still amazing) was readying the crowd for You're the Voice...and out comes Brian May with his guitar to play the song. Cue 70,000 simultaneous freak outs.
 
misskarne said:
Probably the moment of the day though, came right at the end. John Farnham (and wow he is still amazing) was readying the crowd for You're the Voice...and out comes Brian May with his guitar to play the song. Cue 70,000 simultaneous freak outs.
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And those in attendance were lucky as they missed the TV commentator saying "umm, and that's....er, the guitarist from Queen." :rolleyes:
 
This concert made the local news last night here in NorCal. They talked about the concert and I said to Mr. Mac, Queen & Adam Lambert were there and they recreated their set from Live Aid. Immediately afterward, the news said the same thing! So thank you, FSU (and @misskarne) for making me look super smart.
 
An inspiring story of what the people are doing to recover. And a heartbreaking story about what the state and federal governments are still not doing.

www.greatermogofirerecovery.com

Greater Mogo Fire Recovery

Residents of the Greater Mogo area working together to GET IT DONE!
www.greatermogofirerecovery.com www.greatermogofirerecovery.com
 
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