The worst of all fears

All worst fears have been realised. February 7, 2009 wasn't as bad as Ash Wednesday: it was three times worse. Latest expectations are for more than a thousand homes destroyed, and up to 300 people dead.

I've spent much of my spare time this week glued to my laptop, poring over news sites to try to understand what's happened at home.

It's been a rollercoaster week: enormous pride in my cousin Kate, a CFA (Country Fire Authority) volunteer and, in the eyes of many, one of 7000 heroes who tried to stand between Saturday's firestorm and people's lives and homes. She was stationed for 24 hours straight at Kinglake, where maybe 700 homes are gone, and at least 40 people have died.

Monday brought the first shock, as word filtered around re-enactment circles of people who had fought for their homes - not all of them successfully. But at least everyone we knew is still alive.

Then on Tuesday, flicking throught The Age Online, up popped a familiar face, a former colleague, above a link to a list of those 'missing, feared dead'. Professor Rob Pearce, head of sleep disorders at the Austin, where I was PR Manager, died fighting for his home. His wife and adult son survived. He was a brilliant doctor, and great craic as media 'talent', with his untameable hair that made him look every inch a scientific genius, and his knack for describing bleeding edge medical stuff in terms anyone (even the Herald Sun) could understand. Vale Rob.

Wednesday, and the invariable near miss stories are filtering through now. My dad doesn't know if one of his patients is okay. My stepmother's nephew spent hours sheltering in a creek bed, her son turned back by a road block. More relief.

The tiniest details in the paper prompt floods of tears. Emergency shelters put out a plea for dark coloured clothing, suits and dresses - because people who escaped with only the clothes on their backs are struggling to find 'suitable' clothing to wear to the funerals of their relatives, friends and neighbours.

I've stopped reading the news at work - I mustn't cry at my desk in front of my team. But every day I wear the earrings I bought at the St Andrews Market, when Ants and I went home to be married.

CFA Volunteers have been taken off the grisly job of searching homes for bodies- too often, the ruins they're sifting through are in their own town, their own street. It was too much.

Once the coroner's staff have been through, houses are tagged with red and white ribbon, indicating the all clear, or blue and white crime scene tape. But outside my mum's place, a victim of a hit and run lies dead in scorching sun for half a day because there are no coroners' staff available: they're all up at the fires. There's hysteria, as the dead girl's friends come down to where her body lies on the road, and traffic is backed up for hours.

The whole of Marysville is one big crime scene. The town is no more: residents were bussed back there this week to see the ruins for themselves, understand what happened to their homes, but no-one was allowed off the bus. Police say it could take weeks to sift through the remains of more than 120 houses (just 5 still stand, they say), and remove the bodies of perhaps 100 people - 20% of the town's population. I cannot comprehend loss on that scale.

I feel helpless, I want to go home and do something, not just give money. I want to be able to stop talking about it: I don't want the sympathy of my colleagues at work. I'm still one of the lucky ones: everyone I love is still alive. So many can't say that much.