Bushfires Royal Commission: Cobargo residents want to see progress
The residents of Cobargo - a town still struggling to recover from the devastating New Year’s Eve blaze - say they are sceptical the Bushfire Royal Commission will offer any insights into preventing another disaster on the same scale.
The South Coast News
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Traumatised south coast residents who lost their homes and communities in the devastating black summer fires believe the Bushfire Royal Commission won’t do anything to help them rebuild their lives or help with the upcoming fire season.
The Royal Commission began on February 20 after the extreme bushfire season saw 19 million hectares of land burnt across the state five main fires, and has examined the co-ordination, prepardness for, and response to recovery from major events, as well mitigating the impact of natural disasters.
The unprecedented fires destroyed over 3000 homes and killed 33 people across the NSW including Patrick Salway, 29, and his father Robert, 63, were tragically killed while trying to protect their Cobargo home in the firestorm.
David Wilson, who has been forced to live behind his Cobargo post office since fire destroyed his Wandella Road property last summer, says he questions whether the commission’s findings will benefit residents at all.
“I feel a bit sceptical about what will come out of it because a lot of it will be common sense,” Mr Wilson said. “There’s also so much debt expenditure at the moment I don’t know what the government can actually do. Let’s hope this summer is a lot better than the last.”
The post office sits on the town’s main street, where, in the early hours of New Year’s Eve, fire tore through homes and businesses across the district.
In total, staff lost five homes to fire that night, and Mr Wilson said many residents are yet to “overcome the shock and depression” and begin to rebuild what has been lost.
“The Rural Fire Service do not have the resources to deal with it again. They are emotional because they can’t help everyone,” staff member and Yowrie resident Mel Pickering said.
Mr Wilson pointed to a petition sitting at the counter calling for the town’s public toilets to be rebuilt on the same site where they once sat as an example.
The town has had small temporary public toilets tucked away behind its doctors surgery since January.
“For a community to have a petition in shops to ask for them to be restored shows what’s going on,” he said.
“People are depressed with the lack of progress. I don’t know if it’s PTSD, or people are tired, but you can see it on a large scale.
“Those that have lost their homes are overwhelmed. We are still struggling with things.”
He said a small number of kit homes have popped up in town, and there may be more before Christmas, but with many residents working and still in shock, organising to rebuild a lost home is difficult.
“My own personal view is that in many cases the royal commission will just show people what we already know,” he said. “There was too much fuel on the ground, and we should’ve had more air firefighting support.”
While renowned Australian architect Philip Cox has created conceptual designs for the town’s rebuild free of charge, residents are unsure how long it will be before destroyed businesses are rebuilt.
Inside the town’s popular bookshop Well Thumbed Books, Heather O’Connor, who was evacuated four times from the nearby coastal town of Bermagui, said the only thing that saved the town from destruction on New Year’s Day was a timely wind change.
“What has really thrown me is that everyday I hear of someone else who lost their home,” she said.
Five of her closest friends, all aged in their 70s lost their homes, and she said she doesn‘t know how they will “cope” with another fire season.
One of her friends, who lost her home and has been staying with her since January, has only just received a small pod to call home.
“I have friends who can’t go through it again, they need to move,” Ms O’Connor said.
“There are huge decisions for people to make at a time when they really don’t want to be making decisions.
“It’s just been incredibly hard.”
Ms O’Connor said whatever the royal commission recommendations will be, she is unsure how well prepared authorities are for the upcoming season.
“They say we won’t get a drought like the one we had on top of the weather we had last summer,” she said.
“We had no phones, no electricity, no fuel, no way of getting money and we all knew we had to evacuate.”
She said a battery powered radio kept her circle of friends informed during the crisis.
“The wonder is how more people didn’t die,” she said.
“If there is any threat again I will go. I would try getting to Canberra to see my daughter and stay until it’s over.
“Every day I come to this shop and I hear of someone else who has lost their home,” she said.
The commission has handed its recommendations to the Federal Government and the report is expected to be tabled in Federal Parliament on Thursday.