A Dark Day for Australia

...and I'm not talking about the lack of Oscar nominations for the movie 'Australia'. Saturday, February 7th will forever be remembered as Black Saturday. Regarded as the worst natural disaster in the country's history, bush fires destroyed several towns outside of Melbourne. As my mom remembered, Healesville [where we visited the animal santuary and Big Steps Winery and not too far from Melbourne] is on the cusp of the fire line. Early Sunday, the death toll climbed above 50. Within the last week, over 200 people have been confirmed dead, and due to the circumstances of the tragedy, many remains are still left unidentified. Based on your emails, phone calls, Facebook messages, etc, its clear that the US media picked up the story and reported the countless personal tragedies. I can assure you that Melissa and I are just fine; we do, however, have friends who have been significantly affected by the fires.

Its hard to comprehend until you put it into perspective: Marysville, a small town just beyond Healesville, where friends have said to visit as its a quaint country town in the mountain foothills, is no more. It just doesn't exist on the map. No more library, police station, post office, school, gas station, and definitely, no homes. On that Saturday, Melbourne was one of the hottest places on earth! You can see from the screen shot of the weather station below, the temperature in the late afternoon topped 115F. Yikes! Add to that hurricane force winds - yep, winds that were knocking us over as we walked through the neighborhood - and it was like being in a convection oven. Imagine the feeling when you put your cold hands on the baseboard heating to warm-up during the winter - you know how its hot but the warm feels good - until you have to pull your hands away from the heat. Now imagine the air surrounding you is giving you that same feeling over your entire body. Yeah, its that hot!

The good story following this tragedy is how Australians have banded together to support those most affected. Not known for their charitable giving, nearly every large Australian corporation - including Accenture, CEB, and Australia Post - have made considerable donations to the bushfire appeal. Clothing and other donationed items were being turned away from shelters because of the overwhelming response. If you'd like to help out, please donate here. http://www.redcross.org.au/

A funny footnote on the day... Melissa and I had to run an errand across town in the middle of the afternoon using the un-airconditioned trams. That's one hour each way. We had to pick up Melissa's laptop... the laptop she left at the Sydney airport a day earlier... the laptop that a friend picked up from security but couldn't get it beyond her mother's house in Kew... the laptop that couldn't be picked up on Sunday when it was 20 degrees cooler. I know, I know... I'm a great husband.