Sydney From A 727

Some random thoughts. It’s mid October, serious fires are ringing Sydney. It’s out of the ordinary. the Disasters Database tells me that the earliest major fire in the so called season was in NSW in November. It’s Thursday, people got up went to work, as they do everyday, only for some return to nothing at […]

Bali

The Bali bombings are now over ten years ago. What I write has the fog of the intervening ten years shaping it. Take this how you will. This is also a “crossing the streams” post (see the How did I get here page for an explanation). The Bali Bombings were really where I cut my […]

Innovative Thinking re Storm Shelters

Originally posted on Recovery Diva:
An interesting idea from the NYTimes: Next Time, Libraries Could Be Our Shelters From the Storm. Some excerpts: To some extent, churches, libraries, schools and malls already serve as emergency centers, albeit not all churches responded or were equipped to be of help after Sandy. And as the novelist Zadie…

Weak Ties

Out walking the dog this morning, I didn’t feel like listening to music. I popped on a TED talk, from Maria Bezaitis on the surprising need for strangeness. Bezaitis is a data engineer for Intel, and talks about the need for us to interact with a range of people to come up with new ideas. […]

It’s the economy, stupid

The Regional Australia Institute recently released a report on business recovery, From Disaster to Renewal. Those of you who have been reading my blog from the start may recognise that this is the report from the workshop I went to in Marysville back in May. So the report has two unintended positive consequences, that I […]

9/11

Warning: Content Advisory. I describe some graphic scenes, if you aren’t feeling like it, don’t read on today, maybe another day Today, of course, is the 12th anniversary of the September 11 attacks. My thoughts go out to all those affected, through bereavement, through subsequent trauma, and through the fear and suspicion that pervaded society. […]

The Librarians

This morning I was speeding by train across the volcanic western plains heading towards Ararat, my Mum’s hometown 2 ½ hours west of Melbourne, to talk at a Red Cross membership conference about preparedness. I like travelling by train, as it lets me do some work, stare out the window and contemplate, and be exposed […]

Coles to Newcastle

This week I was in Newcastle for a workshop, a place that I have only driven through once. Although I feel I know it, because the 1989 earthquake was used quite extensively in teaching at Mt Macedon. The Newcastle Earthquake measured 5.6 on the Richter scale, killing 13 people and injuring 160. 35,000 homes were […]

I see red

Today I was grilled by some fantastic year 6 students at Essendon North Primary School on a whole range of topics relating to disaster preparedness. The kids were well prepared and had thought deeply about their questions. Their questions reflected a maturity that I don’t see in some adults, who fail to grasp what we […]

Strathewen Memorial

This is probably one of the most rewarding, tangible things I have been involved in, in my work in disaster recovery. I’ve got a story to tell, which I’ll get around to writing down as part of this blog process. In the meantime, Steve and Barb will tell the story of the Strathewen Memorial. It […]