At a housing workshop in Kinglake West last July, I talked with some of the locals about how the telecommunications infrastructure in that region had been rendered inoperable as the Black Saturday bushfires destroyed the local towers.

Yesterday, the anniversary of Black Saturday, I talked to another local at the same Kinglake West hall and heard about how even landline phones stopped that horrible day in February 2009.

The sad part about current telecoms technology is that it is vulnerable to natural disaster.  It can be knocked out by bushfire, by earthquake (rare in Victoria Australia, but frequent in other countries) or by anything that can wipe out terrestrial communications systems.

I won't criticize telcos for such cases.  But I might recommend they eventually look to systems less prone to being wiped by natural disasters at some stage.

In an age where the mobile phone is supplanting the ever-reliable cabled landline, it's important to look at the need for good mobile/cellular communications even in country areas...especially when they're the only thing possible for someone to be warned of an impending bushfire.  It's BEFORE a bushfire you need your mobile phone to be able to get a signal in such areas.

At the Kinglake West hall last July, Virgin/Optus worked enough for me to use a GPRS signal for my wireless internet.  On the same day, a shift of a few metres rendered one bar of Telstra NextG signal useless.  Yesterday,  my new mobile carrier, Vodafone, registered "No Signal" in Flowerdale and only five minutes of one-bar signal in the centre of Kinglake.

In my home town of Bairnsdale Vodafone gets a strong Edge presence, while Optus and GPRS make internet usage via wireless dongle almost as much fun as watching a snail race. The town is at least on one of the major highways.

Up on the mountain, north of Melbourne and not very close to a major highway, mobile service is so patchy it makes you miss the days of analogue mobiles and CDMA.

Sadly, newer technologies miss out on range and not every country-dweller lives on a highway.

Should our country cousins miss out on decent mobile signal?  If one thing was shown us by a year ago, no they should not.

It's one thing if a natural disaster affects telecoms.  It's another if you don't have great mobile systems in some areas because you don't think such areas "profitable."

Yet, if a corporation trades in our country, it's not that bad an idea to put something back into the local community.  If you show your social credentials, we're more likely to buy from you.

So...Telstra, Vodafone and Optus...have a think about it.  Could you be doing a better job providing GOOD telecommunications in such country towns especially after Black Saturday, giving us the tools to be warned about impending disaster?  And could we have saner roaming costs that aren't so prohibitive that we switch roaming off?

Really, guys, give it a think.  Before we ever see any natural disaster as bad as Black Saturday ever again.  You may save lives and customers by doing so.

This morning I listened to Melbourne FoxFM's breakfast show with Matt Tilley and Jo Stanley which was broadcasting from Kinglake.

Throughout the show they talked to people who'd faced the horror of February 7th last year.

Matt and Jo are both parents.  So it must have been hard for them to hear from people who'd lost partners and children during the horrific bushfires that day.  You could hear it in their tone, how much it touched them on a deep level.

It was hard to hear a father and husband describe surviving the ordeal and losing his wife and children that day, just metres from the safety of a dam.

Last year, I got involved with Twitter working to help a niece in Gippsland who came within a hundred metres of danger that first day of the fires.  I came out of that period with a family spread over four areas safe...but today I listened to men who'd similarly tried to do their best to save their loved ones, only to tragically lose them.  They too had worked so hard, especially right there in the danger zone.  They gave their guts worth.  They made supreme efforts to try to beat the odds.

Up in the worst-affected areas, there are some miraculous tales of survival against those odds.  But the thing with fate is...the same amount of effort to save lives doesn't always end up with the same result.

I'm a father myself.  And I shed tears this morning listening to the gentleman in the example a few paragraphs above.

I got an idea of what survivors' guilt must feel like.

One item on the Matt and Jo show did raise an eyebrow when one person mentioned that there was an expectation of "moving on" from the events of last year.

Excuse me for saying this, but it's ignorance to expect someone to move on in so quick a time from such horrific experiences.

Healing from such experiences by the first anniversary is an impossibility.  The first anniversary is a milestone in the recovery...and the first year after such losses is always the worst.  Give these people at least five years to fully heal.  Don't rush the natural healing process.  Let them at least get through this first year before having expectations of them even beginning to start moving forward.

Interestingly, these same people will not only eventually recover, they will probably go on to have a greater empathy for others in different disasters.  They'll turn their worst experience eventually into a positive that helps people in later situations.

If you've never lost anything major in your life, if you weren't affected even directly by February 7 last year...try and remember these people lost everything.  They especially lost the most important thing, their loved ones.  Try and realistically imagine how you'd be if you lost everything you held so dear, even in spite of your best efforts.

Helping these people recover is better assisted by understanding the process of grieving and recovery.

Getting past the first anniversary is the start.

Related Articles:

Anniversary of Black Saturday

When Accidents Cause Fire