people power

17.4.09
A new story is emerging as we discuss the fires. At first everyone focussed on such things as house siting, design and closeness to native forest as factors in which houses survived the fires intact. Now a new factor seems to be more important than all these and it is unexpectedly reassuring. People saved houses. The more people there were at each house the better chance it stood.
In some cases a group of neighbours ended up at one place as a result of a list of accidents and when ever a group worked together they usually succeeded in beating the fires. This makes a lot of sense to me because with only Edd and I working here there was just too much fire for us to deal with especially as it was on all four sides of the house. We felt if reinforcements had come we could have saved everything but offcourse the roads were all blocked, the emergency services overloaded.
I am not sure how one can factor in this when designing a new place. Edd and I want to build a semi underground home and it would obviously help if it only had one or two sides .
The other great thing about people power is that individual effort has made all the difference for people like us who lost everything. Help has mostly come from private individuals who have worked out what they could do and just done it. Caroline and her friends turned up to help every weekend and did what ever we needed. Also everyone one round here will be eternally grateful to the men who brought the classrooms for us to live in.
We are now living in the double donga classroom and it is very homely. The little bedrooms are cosy and clean and I am eagerly waiting for some kitchen cabinets that are coming next week. With lots of wonderful free help from our lawyer, Tom, our insurance company has finally parted with some money so we can set ourselves up with a kitchen and bathroom.
We are still negotiating over the amount we will get for our big house because they are arguing that we were over insured. I don’t think anyone can win. They refuse to pay the full amount for people who are under insured and if they consider you over insured they only want to pay a percentage of the amount you insured for as well. How on earth can anyone get it right? We have sent them costings for other houses built nearby to prove that we have insured for realistic rebuilding costs but they don’t like that either! Next time I insure a house I will refuse to insure with anyone unless they agree to a payout price when we first make the contract.
Incidentally all the promised Government money has failed to show up anywhere yet. I have been told that there is still money left over from funds collected for the victims of Cyclone Tracy ( in the 70’s) so I am not getting my hopes up too high at the moment. Once again, people are more effective with out leaders and committees if they just believe in themselves.