2020: a year of rolling calamities
The harbinger to a year of calamity started at 10.17pm on Wednesday 7th August 2019 when a 1.9 magnitude quake struck Katoomba. Many of the reports came from Katoomba and Leura but there were others from nearby Wentworth Falls and Hazelbrook.
The tremor brought back local memories of previous quakes. The last one in the Blue Mountains Region was on Saturday 12th October 2018 when a 2.4 magnitude hit between Katoomba and Jenolan Caves at 3.38pm. This author was at home outside at the time and it sounded like crash thud as if a large plane had crashed within a kilometre away.
Geoscience Australia later reported the earthquake of 2.4 magnitude at a depth of 3km on the Coxs River at the end of Peach Tree Rd down in Megalong, about 8km west of Katoomba – see red dot.
Today, 12 months ago to the day, Nature Trail received its first booking cancellation as a direct consequence of the New South Wales Government’s Rural Fire Service (RFS) imposed bushfire emergency. The bushfires had only become an emergency because remote ignitions had been ignored by the RFS for months. Back on 26th October 2019 an ignition on a rural property ‘Wirraba’ at the end of Army Road (about 20km north-east of Newnes) had started by unconfirmed means. It was detected a few days later by the RFS but not extinguished, rather left to burn then spread through the entire Wollemi National Park and rage through the adjacent Blue Mountains National Park 70km to the south west. It was a defacto hazard reduction.
One of the most destructive bushfires was the Mount Wilson Backburn deliberately lit by the NSW Rural Fire Service on 14th December from orders by the boss Shane Fitzsimmons back in Sydney’s safe urban Homebush HQ.
The day was windy and dangerous and there was no consulting the experienced local brigade captain Beth Raines and she ended up losing her home at Mount Wilson as a result – one of 20 homes and buildings razed at Mount Wilson and Bilpin as a direct consequence of the RFS arson.
The Mount Wilson backburn burned for 53 days and destroyed 63,700 hectares. razed orchards in Bilpin, part of the Mount Tomah Botanic Garden, ancient rainforests and the Blue Gum Forest, birthplace of the modern conservation movement.
By the 23rd December 2019, the entire Blue Mountains Region had been surrounded by out of control bushfires (multiple hazard reductions threatening to coalesce) and blanketed by suffocating woodsmoke and falling ash. The Blue Mountains was closed to visitors and all entry to the national parks was banned.
As the fires continued to rage, on Wednesday 23rd January at 2:30pm a cold front dumped a sudden hail storm across the Blue Mountains with damaging hailstones the size of golf balls destroying cars and homes. Angry Gods? Read More
At that time, a pair of tourists were struck by lightning near Echo Point at Katoomba. Stay away from metal rails in lightning storms.
This was quickly followed on 23rd January, by a widespread dust storm from farmland out west unaffected by the rains and long impacted by a decade long drought.
Then came the East Coast Low weather event of early February 2020 which pelted torrential rain down constantly over two weeks. Landslips impacted the Blue Mountains, one closing the rail line between Leura and Katoomba. The Insurance Council of Australia declared the event a catastrophe (ICA, 2020), that by 10th February over 10,000 insurance claims had been lodged valued at $45 million.
The first case of coronavirus out of China detected in Australia was on 25 January 2020 in Victoria. On 30th January 2020, the World Health Organisation declared the COVID-19 outbreak a public health emergency, and by 11th March 2020, WHO finally declared the virus outbreak as a global pandemic and renamed it COVID-19.
Government quarantine failure, saw on 18th and 19th March respectively four cruise ships from overseas the ‘Ovation of the Seas’ (3500 passengers), Voyager of the Seas (3600 pax), Ruby Princess (2700 pax) and Celebrity Solstice (2800 pax) all docked in Sydney and discharged all on board. This was despite many sick passengers contaminated with the virus. On 19th March, the Australian Government closed its borders to all non-citizens and non-residents and Qantas suspended 60% of its domestic flights. By 31st March, New South Wales was in imposed pandemic lockdown.
St. Corona, Patron Saint of Plagues
Interstate tourism was in lock down until 23rd November, a month ago, and on 11th December, two weeks ago Australia opened its borders only to New Zealand. That same day, the Avalon Beach RSL staged a live band gig to a full house which lead to a COVID-19 outbreak. Dubbed the Avalon Cluster, Greater Sydney was put into lockdown again since three days ago. And the Premier Gladys Berejiklian calls the Blue Mountains, Greater Sydney.
Early this morning, 23rd December, Katoomba suffered a power blackout for two hours. The Christmas seafood has gone off and we’re all gona get food poisoning.
Merry Christmas 2020.
POSTSCRIPT: And just to top it off, a second power outage across half of Katoomba on Christmas Day.