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Feb. 11th, 2009 10:59 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hnpccSo the fires aren't even out yet and the blame game's already begun.
First cab off the rank is Danny Nalliah, from "Catch the Fire Ministries" - unfortunate name, all things considered - who is blaming the bushfires on Victoria recently decriminalising abortion laws.
But of course. Naturally we've seen God rain down fire in other places where the abortion laws have been decriminalised. Like, you know, London. Brussels. Amsterdam. Just off the top of my head here. Is it too much to ask for an arsonist to torch his house? Just so we can suggest that God is directly punishing him for his sins? And surely "Catch the Fire" is just asking for it really.
Then you apparently have comments made on various news sites along the lines of "the fires wouldn't have happened if people had guns!" I haven't seen these (otherwise I'd link) and Dean thinks they're probably a troll. I tend to agree, but I will give them credit for making me laugh out loud on a day when absolutely nothing else was. Because, you know, bushfires go away if you shoot at them. Damn gun control laws!
Then you have the predicted blames. The CFA. The state government. The council.
This level of blame is only going to increase in the coming weeks as people pass through shock and grief and get angry.
I don't know. I think the "stay or defend" CFA policy will be OK 99% of the time. Saturday was really that 1% where it didn't matter what you did the fires were too big, there were too many of them, they moved too fast and the wind changed unexpectedly and people died because of it. Should we bring in an evacuation policy for vulnerable towns on predicted days like those? Again, I don't know.
There have been a few days which have been predicted to be as bad as Ash Wednesday was over the last few years. Most of them have either failed to get to the predicted temperature, or the winds have changed and pushed the fires back in on themselves/brought rain, or we've gotten very, very lucky and the fires have burned out mostly uninhabited regions. The fires in 2006 burned out a huge area, but it was pretty much all uninhabited, and the small number of farms up there were able to be evacuated or backburned in time and were saved.
And then you have the question of where would you evacuate somewhere like Marysville to? Where's safe?
Dean and I talked about this on the Monday. I tend to think that if we'd been living in Kinglake we'd probably have left and spent the day in Melbourne. Dean thinks this is probably 20:20 hindsight talking, and maybe it is. But Dean knows the Kinglake area very well (he was talking about there only being two roads out and which back roads would be likely to be safest if the main roads were blocked), and to be honest I think that given we had an appointment in Melbourne in the morning we'd quite likely have just packed the boot with some clothes and documents, left the gutters full and hoped for the best. Marysville though... without an appointment somewhere else we'd probably have stayed put in the air-conditioned house. It's further away, there's nowhere really obvious to go to nearby. Healesville would seem to be the semi-obvious choice - but Healesville's currently under threat as well. The problem is Marysville's surrounded by bush in all directions. And psychologically speaking it's a town, and towns don't burn to the ground.
I think though that the policy will likely change to advise very early evacuation of certain vulnerable[1] places on days of predicted extreme conditions. Very early being pretty much "the day before, if possible." It still leaves the question of where the hell you go if you're from some of these towns open though. And it's unlikely to be a mandatory evacuation - as the CFA guy pointed out, you can order people, but you can't make them and they'll just ignore you if they're determined to defend their properties. What it probably will do though is mean that people who were planning on leaving early will now leave earlier. More property will probably be lost through ember attack, but with any luck fewer lives will. That's my guess anyway.
[1] basically places which are difficult to fight fires under extreme conditions in. I could see Noojee being evacuated, or Alexandra - both of which are hilly and surrounded by bush - but it's unlikely that, say, Narre Warren or Bendigo would be. Jury's out on Healesville.
First cab off the rank is Danny Nalliah, from "Catch the Fire Ministries" - unfortunate name, all things considered - who is blaming the bushfires on Victoria recently decriminalising abortion laws.
But of course. Naturally we've seen God rain down fire in other places where the abortion laws have been decriminalised. Like, you know, London. Brussels. Amsterdam. Just off the top of my head here. Is it too much to ask for an arsonist to torch his house? Just so we can suggest that God is directly punishing him for his sins? And surely "Catch the Fire" is just asking for it really.
Then you apparently have comments made on various news sites along the lines of "the fires wouldn't have happened if people had guns!" I haven't seen these (otherwise I'd link) and Dean thinks they're probably a troll. I tend to agree, but I will give them credit for making me laugh out loud on a day when absolutely nothing else was. Because, you know, bushfires go away if you shoot at them. Damn gun control laws!
Then you have the predicted blames. The CFA. The state government. The council.
This level of blame is only going to increase in the coming weeks as people pass through shock and grief and get angry.
I don't know. I think the "stay or defend" CFA policy will be OK 99% of the time. Saturday was really that 1% where it didn't matter what you did the fires were too big, there were too many of them, they moved too fast and the wind changed unexpectedly and people died because of it. Should we bring in an evacuation policy for vulnerable towns on predicted days like those? Again, I don't know.
There have been a few days which have been predicted to be as bad as Ash Wednesday was over the last few years. Most of them have either failed to get to the predicted temperature, or the winds have changed and pushed the fires back in on themselves/brought rain, or we've gotten very, very lucky and the fires have burned out mostly uninhabited regions. The fires in 2006 burned out a huge area, but it was pretty much all uninhabited, and the small number of farms up there were able to be evacuated or backburned in time and were saved.
And then you have the question of where would you evacuate somewhere like Marysville to? Where's safe?
Dean and I talked about this on the Monday. I tend to think that if we'd been living in Kinglake we'd probably have left and spent the day in Melbourne. Dean thinks this is probably 20:20 hindsight talking, and maybe it is. But Dean knows the Kinglake area very well (he was talking about there only being two roads out and which back roads would be likely to be safest if the main roads were blocked), and to be honest I think that given we had an appointment in Melbourne in the morning we'd quite likely have just packed the boot with some clothes and documents, left the gutters full and hoped for the best. Marysville though... without an appointment somewhere else we'd probably have stayed put in the air-conditioned house. It's further away, there's nowhere really obvious to go to nearby. Healesville would seem to be the semi-obvious choice - but Healesville's currently under threat as well. The problem is Marysville's surrounded by bush in all directions. And psychologically speaking it's a town, and towns don't burn to the ground.
I think though that the policy will likely change to advise very early evacuation of certain vulnerable[1] places on days of predicted extreme conditions. Very early being pretty much "the day before, if possible." It still leaves the question of where the hell you go if you're from some of these towns open though. And it's unlikely to be a mandatory evacuation - as the CFA guy pointed out, you can order people, but you can't make them and they'll just ignore you if they're determined to defend their properties. What it probably will do though is mean that people who were planning on leaving early will now leave earlier. More property will probably be lost through ember attack, but with any luck fewer lives will. That's my guess anyway.
[1] basically places which are difficult to fight fires under extreme conditions in. I could see Noojee being evacuated, or Alexandra - both of which are hilly and surrounded by bush - but it's unlikely that, say, Narre Warren or Bendigo would be. Jury's out on Healesville.
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no subject
Date: 2009-02-11 12:50 am (UTC)I can't stand those self-promoting weirds who claim to speak for God, and draw attention to themselves instead of helping and giving hope. Idiots.
We talked about the "go and stay" here as well with a friend in the CFA. He said it is a policy that works, but there's no absolutes in any of this. Even if you have an evacuation you need places for people to go. You want them to leave, but you don't want them to leave in a big panic where there might be one road out of town, and it gets blocked. If people are going to go they still need to know when and where to go.
He also said people rely too much on emergency services and need to take more control and responsibility. He was a bit jaded by cityslickers thinking they could just pay $40 to the CFA and think they were sorted.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-11 03:47 am (UTC)Hm, yes and no. Part of the problem with Kinglake was the lack of warning - people thought they would have more time and notice than they did, and so people who were planning on leaving ended up leaving far too late.
Not that it would have made a huge difference for some of them even if they'd stayed.
The CFA/MFB crossover problem is definitely valid. I mean, I don't have a fire plan but I probably should. All I do is pay my rates and assume that the MFB will save me. Which is probably not a great assumption under some circumstances. Then again, I'm also in suburbia and not up a bush track somewhere.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-11 10:27 am (UTC)When I was a kid, I watched The Towering Inferno and it put me off staying in any hotel or apartment complex above a certain height :)
no subject
Date: 2009-02-11 12:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-11 03:44 am (UTC)Can't see the Angelina resemblance myself!