Tag: emergency

Battening the Hatches …

Some of you may know that South East Queensland and Northern NSW are expecting Tropical Cyclone Alfred imminently, a category 2 system at present. Crossing the coast some time this evening.

Some of you reading this are in it with me with horizontal rain on the coast since early this morning. It’s 2.30 pm at mine with a blustery wind and gappy rain resembling buckets of water thrown into the wind every so often.

I thought I was as prepared as I could be but my lovely son just brought me a camping torch lantern, a water bucket with tap, and a small camping stove.

And then he carried all my outdoor furniture and delicate plants inside , all of that stored into the spare room.

Finally, to finish off his visit, he clipped Moggy’s nails.

Spare room …. indoors I have the citrus (a branch broken already) and the velvet leaf kurrajong. Also a maidenhair fern and a bonsai fig.

Balcony left side ….

Balcony right side …

All the plants remaining outside are meant to be whippy and flexible, three figs and a millaa millaa scrambler. We’ll see how they go.

Doors are still open, wind is from the east so glances past my balcony from the left.

Real Life: Bush Fire Emergency

Hugh and Nan Nicholson’s rainforest burning

Those of us in my region living in towns feel ourselves fairly safe in this emergency. So far. People from out of town have been evacuated and are staying with us. Others ask us to store their precious goods. I’m hosting four musical instruments and three large containers with photos and documents.

Recharging batteries is another thing we can do for people who no longer have electricity laid on. Whose power lines and generator sheds have been burned. In two cases I heard of today, the fire was stopped only a few meters from the main house.

The bushfire season began early this year. We’ve been burning since September, and the fires are getting worse, if that’s possible. Hotter, faster, and more destructive. In the past, diligent back-burning and fuel reduction in winter reduced your chances of being burnt out in summer. Now there’s hardly time. Winters are shorter and we’ve had less than half the rain we had last year when we already had a third less than in 2017.

It’s possible for a fire-ground to be burnt twice in two months. This despite the traditional view that rain-forest plantings, in contrast to Eucalyptus forest, will protect your property. No such thing now. Fires burn so hot that rainforests don’t stand a chance and they don’t grow back the way eucalyptus trees recover.

How will we live in a forever-blackened landscape?

Catherine Ingram’s article Facing Extinction, about the state of the world and humanity’s chances of surviving, is more a prescription for coping with the grief than a wake up call. It’s too late, she says, to try and save our Nature.

The way my countryside is burning, it certainly feels too late. I’m with Landcare. We plant trees. What if no trees survive either? It’s difficult to plan how to live now, when there’s said to be no future.