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Only 20 or so weeks until the bushfires start again.
Fires started by dry thunderstorms, arsonists, and accidents.
What happened last summer must never be allowed to happen again.
If things aren't done differently, those horrors of last summer will surely be repeated.
. Adults and children huddled on beaches, being pelted by burning ember attacks, not knowing if they were going to live or die.
. People dying in homes they stayed to protect. In other homes, children, as brave rescuers arrived, asking: "are we going to die"?
. RFS volunteers being killed.
. RFS volunteers standing fighting the flames as their shoes/boots melted underneath them.
. RFS volunteers fighting the fires in the acrid smoke, with no masks, or what looked like inappropriate masks.
. Very poor or non-existent communication of approaching fires to residents in their path.
. Trees falling on roads, blocking exits of people trying to flee in vehicles.
. Not enough flying water etc tankers to extinguish the fires.
On ACA recently was featured the town of Wilton, 80kms SW of Sydney, they're praying a fire doesn't come their way;
https://9now.nine.com.au/a-current-a...c-c1bc9703c152
Wilton is 80 kilometres south-west of Sydney. The suburb has a couple of shopping centres, a school and thousands of people living there. Yet they don't have a phone tower.
"It takes three months to build a mobile phone tower it doesn't take that long but we have been fighting this for five years now," Matt Deeth, the frustrated Mayor of Wollondily Shire said.
"With the latest fires there was a very serious risk that we were going to be fire impacted we would not have able to get emergency alerts out if that was the scenario we were dealing with here."
At one household, Simon's daughter Hayley has type one diabetes and lifesaving equipment attached to her that alerts her parents when her blood sugar levels are dangerously high or low. But when she sleeps through the medical alarm, the back-up always fails.
They rely on mobile coverage, but the phone connection is like a box of chocolates in the Jenkins household - you never know what you're going to get when it comes to coverage.
"We've nearly lost our daughter twice because our bloody phones don't work because of coverage," Simon said.
"She can basically go to sleep and never wake up."
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What about all the others towns in Australia like this.
Fires started by dry thunderstorms, arsonists, and accidents.
What happened last summer must never be allowed to happen again.
If things aren't done differently, those horrors of last summer will surely be repeated.
. Adults and children huddled on beaches, being pelted by burning ember attacks, not knowing if they were going to live or die.
. People dying in homes they stayed to protect. In other homes, children, as brave rescuers arrived, asking: "are we going to die"?
. RFS volunteers being killed.
. RFS volunteers standing fighting the flames as their shoes/boots melted underneath them.
. RFS volunteers fighting the fires in the acrid smoke, with no masks, or what looked like inappropriate masks.
. Very poor or non-existent communication of approaching fires to residents in their path.
. Trees falling on roads, blocking exits of people trying to flee in vehicles.
. Not enough flying water etc tankers to extinguish the fires.
On ACA recently was featured the town of Wilton, 80kms SW of Sydney, they're praying a fire doesn't come their way;
https://9now.nine.com.au/a-current-a...c-c1bc9703c152
Wilton is 80 kilometres south-west of Sydney. The suburb has a couple of shopping centres, a school and thousands of people living there. Yet they don't have a phone tower.
"It takes three months to build a mobile phone tower it doesn't take that long but we have been fighting this for five years now," Matt Deeth, the frustrated Mayor of Wollondily Shire said.
"With the latest fires there was a very serious risk that we were going to be fire impacted we would not have able to get emergency alerts out if that was the scenario we were dealing with here."
At one household, Simon's daughter Hayley has type one diabetes and lifesaving equipment attached to her that alerts her parents when her blood sugar levels are dangerously high or low. But when she sleeps through the medical alarm, the back-up always fails.
They rely on mobile coverage, but the phone connection is like a box of chocolates in the Jenkins household - you never know what you're going to get when it comes to coverage.
"We've nearly lost our daughter twice because our bloody phones don't work because of coverage," Simon said.
"She can basically go to sleep and never wake up."
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What about all the others towns in Australia like this.
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