Whether the West Bank or East Creek it’s all about preparedness

What if Gowrie Mountain suddenly reverted to an active volcano and blew its top, would you be ready?

Peter Patter cartoon 4/2/21

WORKING for a global network does open the horizons for an employee who had hitherto worked for a less widely-spread organisation.

And, I believe the notion that all employees – no matter from which corner of the globe they come – should be treated and trained equally, is a noble one.

However, after spending a day this week upgrading my natural disaster readiness skills, I think a little site specificity might be in order at times.

For instance, the equipment and skills required for a New York-based newspaper reporter faced daily with street riots, gangland shootings and terrorism attacks might not necessarily apply to a reporter covering the Goombungee Show.

But of course, it’s all about preparedness and you never know quite what’s ahead of you in these days of rare, once in a century occurrences such as pandemics, inland tsunamis, volcano eruptions and Chris Lynn hitting 50 two bats in a row.

Our training instructors were ex-army people who had seen action in some of the world’s hot spots and their experiences and knowledge were invaluable.

However, I’m not sure they quite grasped the lot of a Queensland country journo or they probably wouldn’t have asked such questions as did we have the correct PPE, satellite phones and right gas mask for the particular tear gas used during street riots.

At $15-a-minute, I can just imagine the boss’s response when asked if we could have satellite phones, the only “PPE” I know is that done first thing of a morning, I didn’t even know there were different types of tear gas and the last riot I saw in Toowoomba was when the can booth ran out of beer by lunch time on grand final day at Clive Berghofer Stadium.

Country media outlets are lucky to have COVID masks let alone gas masks equipped with the correct filter for the particular tear gas used.

And, I’m not sure the Garden City would anytime soon be facing an issue so dire as to prompt residents to march on Ruthven St en masse so as to constitute a street riot.

Although, I’d be happy to lead a protest march against those bloody obelisks on our main street.

I can see me in Ronald Reagan mode as the then US president addressed the crowd from the podium at the foot of the then Berlin Wall in the early 1980s: “Mr Gorbachev, tear down this wall”.

Although, in my case it would more likely be from the back of a ute outside City Hall with the request: “Mr Antonio, tear down this obelisk!”

However, the course did give me further insight and even greater admiration for those reporters on the front lines covering dangerous situations like Middle East conflict, war zones and real street riots.

We were shown a video of a reporter copping a Molotov cocktail flush on the shoulder, igniting his clothes, during a street riot in Europe.

“He wasn’t wearing the correct PPE,” an instructor pointed out.

I’m not sure what other than a medieval knight’s armour would have been adequate in the circumstances.

But, I for one, will be forever grateful for the training for should Gowrie Mountain ever revert to an active volcano and blow its top, I’ll be ready!