Silence. There was nothing to hear, I recall someone telling me, after the Black Saturday Bushfires. All those sounds we take for granted were gone. Insects. Birds. Animals, sounds of wind in leaves. Sounds of human movement. Nothing. I felt this as I was in Marysville in those early days. The soundscape had changed, and […]

Disasters are serious events with serious consequences. Our newsfeeds, our conversations, our days are filled with images of despair, destruction, sadness and anger. As I’ve written previously, this can be overwhelming and paralysing. It’s hard to think about humour and laughter in these circumstances. There have been many times when I’ve shared a laugh in […]

Another blog turn over, this time to Lauren Kerr (another disaster recovery specialist on maternity leave, and one of The Laurens..we had four at one stage in the team), who has some importance reminiscences about her time after the Margaret River fires in WA back in 2011. Over to you, Lauren… I’m disheartened to see […]

I was having a yarn at work with Ben, a proud Gunaikurnai man (and ripper drummer) about the fires. His mob, in what we call Gippsland, are right in the path of the fires, and there’s been huge stress on them. I learned a lot, as I always do from talking with our first nations […]

Hello again, Kate Brady here, crashing John Richardson’s blog while he is on a break. In the last weeks, my news and social media feeds have been filled with images and invitations from people who are holding fundraisers to contribute money to support the people affected by the recent (and ongoing) disasters. There have been […]

How long is recovery. It depends. I know that is not a helpful answer at all. Politicians want answers. Funders want answers. Media wants answers. And the people just want to know what is ahead of them. This brings me back to a post that I wrote a couple of years ago, How long is […]

We are at a critical point, as recovery starts to ramp up, and the structures around recovery are formed. We have a new national agency, we have a new state agency, all working out what their role will be in recovery. There will be a temptation to ride in on a white charger to save […]

Hi, my name is Kate Brady and John has been kind enough to let me write a guest post for his blog. I am the National Recovery Adviser for the Australian Red Cross and recently completed my PhD looking at what people who have been affected by disasters think is most helpful when recovering. I […]

These fires are unprecedented. Nationwide. Creating their own weather like some Marvel Movie. a political shitstorm. Extraordinary generosity. And no end in sight. There are a number of intersections we’ve not really seen before, and this is provoking a collective anxiety. It almost fits what we call a collective trauma event, where the very foundations […]