Black Saturday: the community leadership that helped rebuild a devastated region
Two Kinglake businessmen are spreading the word from lessons learned during and after Black Saturday, to help other towns create emergency response plans.
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Do you have the number of your local footy club president in your phone, and do you know them?
This is one of the first things businessman and Black Saturday Whittlesea and Kinglake West community response co-ordinator Larry Challis asks people when he advises them on creating emergency response plans.
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Mr Challis said a crucial lessons from Black Saturday was that existing, natural community leaders will mobilise their social groups during a disaster, and provide crucial broader community support.
Mr Challis and fellow Black Saturday Whittlesea and Kinglake West community response co-ordinator Ivan Peterson said they used the lessons from the devastating fires to teach other communities the importance of creating strong community networks before crises hit.
In the hours during the fire, and the months after, the pair spearheaded a ‘for the people, by the people’ crisis response centre from the Whittlesea Community Activity Centre, church halls and community group bases.
Mr Peterson said in the immediate wake of the fires “basic things were the most important”.
“Helping people do their washing, letting them know that people cared, those were probably the most important things,” Mr Peterson said.
Then weeks of 16-hour days, grief and exhaustion followed, but also a strengthened sense of the power of community, Mr Challis said.
Mr Peterson said in the months after Black Saturday the pair turned their sights to holding regular meetings to ensure “there were no gaps or duplications in service delivery”.
Both men stressed they were community members, not heroes, and among a significant group of people who focused on rebuilding the community at a grassroots level.
Today the pair share this experience with councils across Victoria.
While Mr Peterson said he felt like he had “aged 20 years in the last 10” neither of the men regretted helping out.
Ten years on from the terror of the flames, what shone brightest was the knowledge “if there is a big enough challenge people will step up,” Mr Challis said.
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