Baradine: Prepared for anything

But it only really sunk in after the little town with an ageing population narrowly escaped the disastrous Wambelong bushfire in 2013.

Since then, the community has worked hard to prepare for emergency situations and make sure it can recover if disaster should strike again.

So successful have residents been that Baradine recently received the state government’s Get Ready Community Award, which recognises a community that has taken action and worked together to strengthen its resilience to disasters.

Baradine and District Progress Association secretary Roslyn Kildey has vivid memories of the town’s near-catastrophe, which razed more than 56,000 hectares of WarrumbungleNational Park and private land, and destroyed 53 houses.

The big problem, she said, was either lack of information on what to do or mixed messages when word did come.

“I had gone to sleep and didn’t know there was a fire until 10.30 at night when my sister in Newcastle rang to ask how I was getting on,” she said.

“We didn’t know how far away the fire was, we didn’t know the speed. We didn’t know a lot of things. We were hearing that it was 20 kilometres away and approaching; it was one kilometre out of Bugaldie; to prepare for evacuation.

“And that was the message we got for the next 10 hours. We didn’t get any updates.”

Roslyn said there wasn’t a lot of communication in town and people were ringing around.

“And of course all the telephones crashed because they were so overloaded. So you get Chinese whispers.”

And then there was the confusion.

“We had people from Bugaldie evacuating here – they were told to go to the local pub. And of course they weren’t set up as an evacuation centre, so there were a lot of rumblings, a lot of dissatisfaction about the information that was being given to the town.

“Our main road between Bugaldie was cut off. Because I was new in town I didn’t even know there was a road out the back way to Coonamble.

“Luckily for us the fire swerved away. But we didn’t know that. All we knew was that it was one kilometre from Bugaldie.”

Determined to learn from the experience, the progress association, Warrumbungle Shire Council, and emergency services personnel launched the Best for Baradine project to prepare for future hazard.

This comprised workshops where experts answered questions covering everything from the nature of bushfires, how they spread and how warning systems work, to discussions on storms and flooding, and what sort of insurance to take out.

A computer expert spoke about scanning important documents such as insurance papers onto USB sticks or disks (a service now offered for free in the town). Mental health and how to cope during a crisis and afterward was also discussed.

Two issues of special concern to Roslyn were what to do in an evacuation and taking care of pets.

She said some seniors had trouble knowing how to respond to the automatically generated telephone alerts.

“The old fella across the road from me was quite distressed. His family had given him a mobile phone, but he didn’t how to use it.”

The man kept getting the “prepare to evacuate” message and didn’t know what to do.

Roslyn, who bred dogs for many years, said some seniors stayed in their homes rather than leave their pets behind. She discussed the importance of having a portable holding pen and emergency kit in place so their pets could be evacuated with them.

An emergency services day at the showground gave locals the chance to quiz the experts, while information leaflets were published and distributed around the town.

One particularly clever idea was to install a computer monitor in the front window of the Rural Transaction Centre displaying important community information, including what to do in an emergency.

The progress association’s next plan is for an electronic message board to be permanently placed in a prominent position outside the memorial hall so people, coming from any direction, can be warned of bushfires, floods, road closures and other vital information.