11/03/09 Candle-Light Blogging

I wasn't sure what to call this entry but Ros just walked from the kitchen and found me seated outside in the cool, tapping away by candle-light and my keyboard light and said, "Ah, it looked dark but you are candlelight blogging, it doesn't sound very attractive does it?". I suppose it doesn't really but there is long tradition of writing by candle-light and it looks a lot better than it sounds.

Monday 09/03/09 Public Holiday - Labour Day in Vic
Was a bit of a change. Ian my sailing partner and I took the two trailers, one for travelling, carrying our Cole 23 yacht "La Pirogue" and one for the boatyard at Yaringa, from Tecoma where she's been since we brought her back from Paynesville in January. Drove down to Yaringa where we got her rigged and eventually into the water at about 15:30. It was a bit of an anti-climax as I had to leave at 16:00 and we only really had time to run the engine to check the newly installed cables and discover that while they were delivering some current from the motor, it wasn't the 10-12 volts we were anticipating. Yeah I know volts isn't current but that's all I'm saying on this subject. Bit more web research required here.

Dinner at a local pub with Cait, kids and Ros and then home to whatever we did before going to bed. I can remember writing a few emails but the rest is a blank.

Tuedsay 10/03/09
The day began badly. Actually that's not quite true, it began really well with Ros and I up at the farm, me to meet with Stephen a Council Health chap and Ros to have a coffee with our uphill neighbours Stella and Alan. It was a pleasant drive up although I was a little surprised to see that the Do Not Enter warning tape that we had stretched across the driveway had apparently broken.

I parked and got out of the car, noticing that the carcase of the Ford Laser appeared to be in a different location than where I'd last seen it late on Saturday afternoon. Leaving Ros in the car because I felt somewhat apprehensive, I walked around the bend in the driveway and discovered that not only had the car been dumped on the corner of a still surviving garden, but that most of the roofing iron had been removed and stacked higgledy-piggledy on the little patch of lawn that we'd been trying to keep alive. My brain struggled to make sense of what I was seeing. It seemed like someone had been looking for something but I couldn't imagine what they thought we had that was so valuable, that it warranted a caterpiller tracked machine and anyway, why had they knocked down most of the remaing walls and moved stuff all over the place, making any subsequent search not quite impossible. Finally, if they were in such a hurry to find whatever it was, why go to the trouble of stacking albeit in a fairly random manner, all of the roofing iron and why drop the bloody car on the garden!?? Were they planning to come back and collect all the metal? Perhaps it was the Grollo contractors getting a head start.

At about this point reason and serious anger kicked in. Reason said it couldn't be Grollo because it was just too soon. Nobody, not even Grollo can move that fast in 48 hours which was when I'd last determined that there was as yet no time-table other than between 6 weeks and 6 months. It couldn't have been the police because they knew who had been in the house and that all had survived and anyway they would have called me because all of our details had been collected and registered. I was ropable and as it turned out wrong.

What right did anyone have to enter our property and dismember what little was left of 15 years of living. I felt shatterered and hurt, reduced to merely a job on some bastard's worksheet. What of decency or respect? Who cared about how we felt? Poor bloody Ros had not even had an opportunity to search for some pieces of her treasured dinner and tea sets or anything else. I had thought it too dangerous and had wanted the asbestos all clear before I would let her enter the ruins of her home and now some careless arseholes had probably spread the deadly stuff all over the place. She was very upset and I was seriously pissed off!

With nothing to be done until the Council team arrived, Ros went off to have a cup of coffee and I sat down on a pine log that had somehow missed the mulching and waited. Stephen and female colleague whose name is gone from my head, arrived shortly after in a shiny, new, dark-blue, Subaru 4wd.

Introductions performed, I lost no time in telling them what had occurred and how we felt. I asked if they had any awareness of an early start by Grollo or subcontractors. It was as much a mystery to them as it was to me. Still perplexed and for my part angry as well, we were having a general look at the place when a truck which looked a lot like a CFA DMO unit drove halfway down the driveway.

As I approached wondering what the DMO guys were doing up this way, the passenger door opened and a blue overalled policeman said that they just needed somewhere to turn around and the driveway had been convenient. I took the opportunity to ask if they had any idea who might have been responsible for tearing down my Do Not Enter tape and scattering roofing metal, not to mention a car all over my front yard? "Yeah that was us." was the innocent reply.

It appeared that the Coroner had ordered a complete sweep of every dwelling in the area to ensure that no-one had been missed. It seemed to be irrelevant that the police already had the details of the occupants and their safety and that the occupants had been present throughout the fire and would not have missed any third party attempting to seek refuge. It was similarly irrelevant that the police and every other relevant authority in the bloody country had my contact details and had not seen fit to offer the courtesy and attempt to call me. "There are over 2,000 dwellings to be checked and it has to be done as quickly as possible, "said the nameless one who had neither bothered to introduce himself or apologise for the situation The phrase "collateral damage" came to mind. Stupidly I tried to reason with them, "...but if you'd broadcast the information and invited people to call you, if just 30% of the total responded and only 50% of the occupiers could verify that they had been the only people in the building, you'd have significanly reduced the search effort and resources required ...". Of course I got the now standard, "we don't make the orders, we just execute them" response or words to that effect, as we used to say on an army charge sheet when I was doing my National Service.

It's surprising to me at least, that people generally do not seem to realise that as a defense, the following of orders and ignoring human decency or feelings hasn't been valid since the Nuremburg trials. I'm not suggesting for a second that these young constables were or had engaged in nazi like behaviour but surrounded by gaunt blackened trees, with grey ash covering everything and twisted burnt metal and shattered glass and bricks, an empty sick feeling of being even less than a non-person, the stomp of jackboots did not seem to be very far away.

My subsequent enquiries have identified that a number of people in official roles attempted to argue as I had but were either ignored or over-ruled. That made me feel considerably better as did a promise by a senior police officer that the issue would be raised at the official debriefing once the exercise had been completed and perhaps in future a different approach may result.

I noted with interest that today's ABC news broadcasts did provide an awareness that the police and army task force were doing a final sweep and were being moved up to Marysville. The OC of the Army task force was even interviewed in some depth by Richard Stubbs during his afternoon broadcast. Perhaps someone has been listening.

In case you were wondering, the Council people, were most understanding and helpful and outlined the requirements for putting a caravan on site. We'll have to arrange a portaloo and do any major laundry off-site but generally things seemed to be pretty straight forward.

The next challenge will be to find someone who can advise on the best approach for a road to access and exit the flat, both for the caravan and the barn delivery truck. Yeah I know there's a pun in there but it wasn't deliberate.