Batemans Bay locals take to sleeping in cars as fire threatens
The usually popular streets of the coastal town of Batemans Bay have been deserted as tourists flee and locals take shelter at evacuation centres or sleep in their cars as bushfires again threaten to hit today.
NSW
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In Batemans Bay the usually popular streets have been deserted and many people have taken to sleeping in their cars instead of trying to get a spot in an evacuation centre set up in Hanging Rock.
Jasmin Brett, 53, who lives alone and runs an online store selling homewares, faces an anxious wait to learn if her house emerges unscathed today because it sits adjacent to bushland in the town.
The 53-year-old, who decided to leave her house two days ago, has been living out of her car on the beach because she says an evacuation centre in the town is overcrowded and that she did not want to scare her puppy, Lilly.
“I’ve got bush right behind my fence and after Tuesday I just did not want to do that again,” she said.
“(The evacuation centre) is packed and I’ve got a little puppy and I don’t want to traumatise her with 10 million people and 10 million dogs – we’ll be staying here again tonight.
“I’ve locked everything up, shut every door in the house and put some photos in the bathtub – what can you do? I’ve been paying insurance to the NRMA for 30 years, if my house burns down I’m making a claim.”
Ms Brett said the fires that hit Batemans Bay on New Year’s Eve were scary.
“It’s just unreal, I don’t know what to say about it … that wind, the roaring and the ferocity of it – it was supernatural,” she said.
Coles in Batemans Bay, which has provided a lifeline to residents in the town desperate for supplies in recent days, has been closed for today but reopned on Sunday.
Customers were turned away after reading a note on the door saying “hope all our customers stay safe through these trying times”.
Batemans Bay resident Susie Gilroy, who works as a receptionist at a local panel beater, went to Coles to buy vital supplies such as milk on Saturday but was turned away.
“I was just thinking I would stock up just in case,” she said.
“I’m in Catalina, it did get a little bit scary.
“My work has been impacted, I didn’t realise Cranbrook Rd was so bad. It was scary, I don’t know (how my business) survived.”
The closure comes only a day after Coles sent an extra struck on a dangerous journey to restock the supermarket on Friday.
Parker Whiteman, 8, Jet Love, 13, Miller Whiteman, 11, and Naite Turner, 10, have been camping on the beach in Malua Bay with their parents after ferocious fires swept through the town on New Year’s Eve.
Miller and his friends clap every time a RFS truck passes and ask the fireys to honk their horns and turn on their sirens.
“I’m out on the beach, we’ve been skating,” Miller said.
Miller’s mother Belinda Whiteman, 40, said she decided to move her family to the beach because of the ferocity of the fires on New Year’s Eve.
“Gas bottles were going off over there, the point was on fire, the bush was on fire,” she said.
“We’re concerned, we’ve cleared up and packed up.”
High school teacher Kylie Hurt evacuated nearby Moruya with her sons Byron, 12, and Flynn, 10, and has been living with friends until the danger passes.
“The night I left I could see the fires in the hills … I just didn’t want to sleep there another night,” she said.
“I didn’t want to have the boys there by myself. It’s concerning there’s that southerly gale coming through, pushing that fire back towards Maria. No reception has been hard.”