Mitchell fire. Your pictures and video

I agree on the poor spelling issue.

Poor grammar or punctuation on emergency messages I can live with, but basic spelling mistakes like that one needs to be sorted.

It’s not just a case of taking a swipe at someone that cannot spell (we all have our faults and are not perfect). These are messages that we need to be confident are coming from the “appropriate” authorities especially in times when you need direction. Huge spelling errors like that one, you do question whether it was real, especially as the spelling is similar to how a primary school student would try to sound out a word.

That aside, it was good to see the EBS being used. As for closing the schools, great move. Even though it inconvenienced a lot of people, who had to scramble with alternative plans for the kids, and that it was probably over cautious, but it was probably the correct thing to do with a fire still burning.

As for the EBS and its list of phones that it broadcasts to. Being involved in the telecommunications industry, I suspect that it is using the information provided by the carrier as your residential address. This information is made available to the Emergency Services for instance when you make a call using your Mobile to 000, the information pops up on their screen. When you update your address with your Mobile Carrier, the update is available to Emergency Services.

However, the issue for some, is that they might move around a fair bit, and with more and more bills being direct debited, or emailed, many don’t get around to updating their address (no need to, no bills get sent to the address).

Then you have the prepaid phones. They might activate the SIM Card once (which is when they enter your address), but I strongly suspect that anyone on prepaid, doesn’t rush to update their address if they move, and to be honest with you, I suspect that there is no clear process in place to update the address.

Made it onto BBC World News tonight, 2min story slotted in between stories on Palestinian Independence and floods in Pakistan. You don’t see that everyday… even if they did make it sound like half the city resembled Kabul.

I didn’t get a text or a phone call or anything, and we are in the listed suburbs – how do you get on these lists?

I heard a lot of explosions in the night, but I just thought Majura Firing range were losing the plot.

dtc said :

Naturally, had the smoke proven toxic (something not known until close to 9am ie start of school time) and the wind direction changed unexpectedly (of course, highly unlikely what with weather predictions always being correct) and blown over a school or Belco, you would presumably have been fully supportive of all decisions and just said ‘well, at least I dont live in a nanny state, and at least when I get sick I get medicare, except that I dont agree with medicare’.

Its easy to say ‘nanny state’ after the fact, when you know it wasn’t bad. Its not so easy to rectify an initial mistake or delay. As an example, have a look at the lead up to Hurricane Katrina. In an effort to be ‘American’ and not tell people what to do – not be a nanny state – things were left way too late and the consequences of those decisions could not be fixed.

This.

“But I keep my cameras by my bedside-always ready for any type of action to be captured. :-)”

As a single bloke living alone, no chance of any action over here…

poetix said :

‘This kind of basic spelling mistake is just embarrassing. Made me doubt it’s validity…’

That’d be its validity. No apostrophe in the possessive its. It’s not that hard.
Back to the comfort of pedantry after being scared by things chemically.

I apologise profusely for the improper grammar. I shall endeavour to attain higher standards of iPhone autocorrect in the future. 🙂

Although, the iPhone’s autocorrect feature would have fixed the bad spelling in the original text message. Oh no, what a quandary.

Gungahlin Al said :

You do understand that when PCBs burn they can produce the same chemical that made mustard gas right? The mustard gas that crippled and killed so many people in WWI. (As advised by ESA in their live media conference.)

It wasn’t the explosions they were alerting people to – it was the potential effects of the smoke. And while the smoke went up a fair way, it did come back down in surrounding suburbs – some quite a distance. In fact a Wamboin resident reported on 666 the smoke down right through his area and all the way to Collector.

I for one am entirely comfortable with the alerts going out. If I had slept through it (as some amazingly did), with the bedroom windows open, the potential for breathing in whatever would have been high.

If instead of stupid, this post is trolling, it is a most inappropriate thread to play that game on.

If you going to do something do it properly, don’t make half arsed attempts at something so important as peoples lives.

PCB’s and other toxins were cleared by the ESA early this morning, around 7ish I think – listening to 666 you would have got an early scoop verifying this from the chief firey. Closing a school in Weetangera where there was no sign of smoke or anything from this fire is overkill – as I said balloons were still flyer all over belco. Closing schools in Gungers/giralang/evatt/kaleen/Watson/Dickson areas – excellent thinking.

Friends of mine (yes they exist) in palmerston & forde fobbed the txt off as fake as it looked like a hoax – this plays with peoples lives, not on in my books.

Trolling – no. Stupid – depends who you ask but no. Inappropriate thread – perhaps but I have seen more ridiculous threads and comments in this fora. Just trying to get across that this was more an exercise in raising panic by not doing something properly.

KaptnKaos said :

Could this have been any more of an overkill of panic by a nanny state, seriously.
Granted, close off/evacuate Mitchell and close by suburbs, granted it was a bit scarey for those RESIDENCES nearby with the explosions but the ESB should have warned people earlier in the night – but come on, think about it people – closing ALL northside schools??? blocking off gungers (although this was a godsend for us southsiders travelling to work, it was bliss this morning)??? sending out a joke of an sms which woke people at 3 in the morning and made them think it was a hoax??? the balloons were still floating over belco/gungers this morning.

You do understand that when PCBs burn they can produce the same chemical that made mustard gas right? The mustard gas that crippled and killed so many people in WWI. (As advised by ESA in their live media conference.)

It wasn’t the explosions they were alerting people to – it was the potential effects of the smoke. And while the smoke went up a fair way, it did come back down in surrounding suburbs – some quite a distance. In fact a Wamboin resident reported on 666 the smoke down right through his area and all the way to Collector.

I for one am entirely comfortable with the alerts going out. If I had slept through it (as some amazingly did), with the bedroom windows open, the potential for breathing in whatever would have been high.

If instead of stupid, this post is trolling, it is a most inappropriate thread to play that game on.

KaptnKaos said :

Could this have been any more of an overkill of panic by a nanny state, seriously.
Granted, close off/evacuate Mitchell and close by suburbs, granted it was a bit scarey for those RESIDENCES nearby with the explosions but the ESB should have warned people earlier in the night – but come on, think about it people – closing ALL northside schools??? blocking off gungers (although this was a godsend for us southsiders travelling to work, it was bliss this morning)??? sending out a joke of an sms which woke people at 3 in the morning and made them think it was a hoax??? the balloons were still floating over belco/gungers this morning.

Naturally, had the smoke proven toxic (something not known until close to 9am ie start of school time) and the wind direction changed unexpectedly (of course, highly unlikely what with weather predictions always being correct) and blown over a school or Belco, you would presumably have been fully supportive of all decisions and just said ‘well, at least I dont live in a nanny state, and at least when I get sick I get medicare, except that I dont agree with medicare’.

Its easy to say ‘nanny state’ after the fact, when you know it wasn’t bad. Its not so easy to rectify an initial mistake or delay. As an example, have a look at the lead up to Hurricane Katrina. In an effort to be ‘American’ and not tell people what to do – not be a nanny state – things were left way too late and the consequences of those decisions could not be fixed.

creative_canberran said :

Hard questions need to be asked about why Polychlorinated biphenyl (PCBs), a substance banned by the international Stockholm Convention was even at this site. (snip) So why was it been handled literally across the road from homes with families?.

My oath. They should only store PCBs near where single people live.

That said, I was very surprised to learn they had PCBs there. Very nasty.