Like the rest of the country and the world I have been affected by the loss of life from the fires in the state of Victoria.
The holocaust of this fire event will be etched for ever in all our minds.
We have many friends in Victoria....we need to be able to give them all the support possible.
Victorian Fires
Moderator: webmaster
-
Angela Helleren
- Posts: 96
- Joined: Sat May 19, 2007 6:45 am
- Location: Victoria
The loss of one life is too many,
but to lose so many is numbing.
To be so near and yet feel so far
The support from a far is comforting.
I never doubt the Australian spirit that binds us all.
but to lose so many is numbing.
To be so near and yet feel so far
The support from a far is comforting.
I never doubt the Australian spirit that binds us all.
Many hands make light work.
Unfortunately, too many hands stirring anti clockwise, has spoiled mother natures recipe.
Back to basics.
Unfortunately, too many hands stirring anti clockwise, has spoiled mother natures recipe.
Back to basics.
This article appeared in todays SMH 11/2/09. It makes a lot of sense.
What must be done to rebuild - and how it could go wrong
February 11, 2009
Political will is needed to face the massive task ahead, writes Tony Powell.
There are probably not many people in Australia who know how disaster reconstruction ought to be managed and how urgently it needs to be done.
I have a pretty fair idea. I was the inaugural chairman and chief executive of the Darwin Reconstruction Commission in 1975.
In a few frightening hours, Cyclone Tracy blew Darwin, a city of 28,000 people, off the face of the earth. By the end of a three-week emergency period under the control of Major-General Alan Stretton, during which the whole population was evacuated south, the Reconstruction Commission began the reconstruction of public and private buildings and infrastructure that took from three to five years to complete.
The lessons from the Darwin experience are clear. Having made a public commitment to rebuild damaged areas, the Victorian Government needs to establish a statutory authority with overriding powers to plan, develop and reconstruct buildings and infrastructure in the prescribed disaster area, using both public and private sector resources to achieve the best effect possible.
Unfortunately, the proposed Bushfire Reconstruction Authority announced yesterday will spend an interminable amount of time consulting, planning and advising in a process that will have little or no practical relevance to the tangible process of rebuilding infrastructure, houses and community facilities, with the degree of urgency that is required and will be expected.
The authority's staff need to live and work in the prescribed area so they are able to maintain constant contact with people, issues and events with a high sense of urgency.
Finally, the victims of this disaster will in many cases be seriously damaged psychologically and in spirit. Those violently robbed of hope and any sense of their future often take weeks, even months, to be able to resolve what is in their own and the community's best interests.
The authority has to be able to cope with genuinely felt anxiety about how priorities for fiscal investment and action should be chosen.
Time is the enemy. It won't take long before the disaster begins to fade in the media and in the mind of politicians. It won't take long before the state and federal treasuries begin to put into the mind of the Premier and the Prime Minister that the reconstruction ought to be curtailed because of adverse effect on their education and health budgets.
With its announcement of a royal commission into the causes of the fire as its first response to the tragedy, the Victorian Government is off to a bad start. Royal commissions are the great cop-out, much favoured by governments to obfuscate their own accountability and delay the allocation of funding that might disturb budget priorities.
The first and most important thing that disaster victims want to hear from government is how and when their houses, their towns, their community facilities and their livelihoods will (not might) be restored. And the next thing they want to see is material evidence, within days and weeks, that things are happening.
The Premier needs to decide whether the reconstruction is as important as, say, an Olympic Games, because that is the order of magnitude and complexity of what needs to be built, against the same tight deadlines, under constant media scrutiny and by a dedicated team of skilled people. Then the Premier must choose the person to lead the reconstruction authority - the single person in whom the Government places its complete faith.
The threats to eventual success will typically come from an inability to imagine the scale and complexity of the reconstruction task, with the result that the State Government may be inclined not to assign its most effective public servants to the job.
The Federal Government could hang back because it no longer has a public service that can do much more than formulate endless policies and guidelines to regulate the spending of fiscal grants that it is subsequently unwilling or unable to police.
But the greatest danger of all is the ever-present politicisation of public administration that bedevils the work of state and federal public servants generally, fed by an evil army of ministerial advisers whose purpose is to divert, disrupt and channel public service outputs to best serve the interests of ministers, political parties, selected private sector interests of money and influence, and always to the detriment of the public interest.
Tony Powell is a town planner and civil engineer.
-
Angela Helleren
- Posts: 96
- Joined: Sat May 19, 2007 6:45 am
- Location: Victoria
Duane - An interesting article but as Premier Brumby is a born and bred country boy (as with PM Rudd), I'm more confident that he will be very hands on in his approach, not merely delegating or simply relying on a Royal Commission, in order to appear to be doing.
I was thinking of all the lost feed for both native and farm/domestic animals and googled for info on how a bushfire effects the soil and environment in general.
(:oops: sorry about the stretched margins)
http://www.dse.vic.gov.au/dse/nrenfoe.n ... 2B7A5?open
From the article - Soils
Bushfires can have biological, chemical and physical effects on soils. The occurrence and/or extent of these effects are dependent on the fire's intensity and the resulting temperature of the soil. Generally, only the top few centimetres are affected as they are subjected to the highest temperatures.
Low intensity fires cause biological effects such as sterilisation (or death of living tissue) within the soil. Higher soil temperatures (greater than 100ºC) may alter soil chemical structure, changing the amounts and availability of nutrients such as nitrogen, phosphorus and ammonia. These soil changes, combined with ash from the fire, may cause an 'ash-bed effect', increasing the fertility of the soil. However, these nutrients are relatively soluble, and may be rapidly washed from the site by rain.
Fire may cause changes in the permeability of the soil (or its ability to absorb moisture) and so may also alter soil structure. The removal of vegetation during a fire exposes the soil to wind and water. These two factors make soils very susceptible to erosion, and consequently, heavy rainfall immediately after a fire may cause massive erosion or mudslides.
Water
Fire can affect streamwater quality and may also influence the amount of water produced by a forest (that is, the levels of streamwater). Erosion may cause soil, ash and nutrients to be transported into streams. This increases the sediment load and the turbidity of the water. The quantity of water produced by an area that has been burnt may initially increase, as there is little vegetation, and subsequently little water usage or entrapment. Sometime later, however, high water use by regenerating vegetation can reduce water yield from a catchment.
****************
With such vast areas effected by the fires, over the next few weeks and months, there's a lot more to think about and be done, than just re building homes & businesses. Even for those whose home survived the fires .... it would be a shame if they were later lost to mudslides.
Apparently the publics response to calls for donations of clothing, goods and money has been amazing. My husband said he heard on ABC radio tools are also needed. So if you're in and around Melbourne and have been trying to think of how you could help.....check out your sheds. (post hole diggers, shovels, wire cutters etc.)
You fellas usually have more than you ever use!
Cheers Angie
I was thinking of all the lost feed for both native and farm/domestic animals and googled for info on how a bushfire effects the soil and environment in general.
(:oops: sorry about the stretched margins)
http://www.dse.vic.gov.au/dse/nrenfoe.n ... 2B7A5?open
From the article - Soils
Bushfires can have biological, chemical and physical effects on soils. The occurrence and/or extent of these effects are dependent on the fire's intensity and the resulting temperature of the soil. Generally, only the top few centimetres are affected as they are subjected to the highest temperatures.
Low intensity fires cause biological effects such as sterilisation (or death of living tissue) within the soil. Higher soil temperatures (greater than 100ºC) may alter soil chemical structure, changing the amounts and availability of nutrients such as nitrogen, phosphorus and ammonia. These soil changes, combined with ash from the fire, may cause an 'ash-bed effect', increasing the fertility of the soil. However, these nutrients are relatively soluble, and may be rapidly washed from the site by rain.
Fire may cause changes in the permeability of the soil (or its ability to absorb moisture) and so may also alter soil structure. The removal of vegetation during a fire exposes the soil to wind and water. These two factors make soils very susceptible to erosion, and consequently, heavy rainfall immediately after a fire may cause massive erosion or mudslides.
Water
Fire can affect streamwater quality and may also influence the amount of water produced by a forest (that is, the levels of streamwater). Erosion may cause soil, ash and nutrients to be transported into streams. This increases the sediment load and the turbidity of the water. The quantity of water produced by an area that has been burnt may initially increase, as there is little vegetation, and subsequently little water usage or entrapment. Sometime later, however, high water use by regenerating vegetation can reduce water yield from a catchment.
****************
With such vast areas effected by the fires, over the next few weeks and months, there's a lot more to think about and be done, than just re building homes & businesses. Even for those whose home survived the fires .... it would be a shame if they were later lost to mudslides.
Apparently the publics response to calls for donations of clothing, goods and money has been amazing. My husband said he heard on ABC radio tools are also needed. So if you're in and around Melbourne and have been trying to think of how you could help.....check out your sheds. (post hole diggers, shovels, wire cutters etc.)
You fellas usually have more than you ever use!
Cheers AngieMany hands make light work.
Unfortunately, too many hands stirring anti clockwise, has spoiled mother natures recipe.
Back to basics.
Unfortunately, too many hands stirring anti clockwise, has spoiled mother natures recipe.
Back to basics.
This was in the Melbourne paper and also heard it from a fellow at work whose family are at Kinglake
There were seven houses in the street at Reedy Creek, all but one were destroyed on Saturday night. The owner of the one surviving house had just been fined thousands of dollars by the Shire for illegal tree clearing. Wonder if the owners of the destroyed houses know a good lawyer? Wonder if the Shire knows a good lawyer!?
Col.
There were seven houses in the street at Reedy Creek, all but one were destroyed on Saturday night. The owner of the one surviving house had just been fined thousands of dollars by the Shire for illegal tree clearing. Wonder if the owners of the destroyed houses know a good lawyer? Wonder if the Shire knows a good lawyer!?
Col.