NSW bushfire emergency

Off Topic
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Here is a post from my local (Sutherland) RFS Facebook page. A lot of the advice here applies for other areas too. I hope everyone stays safe, especially our RFS volunteers:

The fire danger for the Greater Sydney Area including the Sutherland Shire is ‘Catastrophic’, the highest possible level.

A Total Fire Ban remains in force until midnight tonight.

The weather locally will see the temperature reach the high 30’s, with very low humidity and strong north westerly winds, averaging 50km/h, gusting to 70km/h.

Winds will begin increasing mid morning with the peak fire danger between 11am and 6pm.

A cool and gusty southerly change will move through around 7pm, however conditions will remain dangerous for a few hours post the change.

These conditions are as bad as it gets. Fires burning under these conditions are very dangerous and our focus is purely on keeping people safe.

Many facilities have closed or modified their operation.

The NSW Rural Fire Service will be crewing all RFS stations within the Sutherland Shire.

Fire & Rescue NSW will move additional appliances into the area and place them at a number of stations.

National Parks and Wildlife Service have a number of firefighting units coming online.

All National Parks are closed including visitor precincts such as Audley.

Road closures in the Royal National Park will be in place at Farnell Avenue, McKell Avenue and Lady Wakehurst Drive, only local traffic will be given access.

NSW Police will increase resources in the area with a visible presence.

Department of Defence have removed all personnel from the Holsworthy Training Area.

Essential works on the water pipeline between Woronora Dam and Sutherland has ceased.

The Sutherland Shire Local Emergency Operations Centre will be activated this morning.

Sydney Water has filled all reservoirs in the area to capacity.

Catastrophic is the highest level of bush fire danger. Homes are not designed to withstand a fire under these conditions.

If a fire starts and takes hold during Catastrophic fire danger conditions, lives and homes will be at risk.

Avoid bush fire prone areas. A safer area may be a shopping centres or facilities well away from bushland areas.

If you are unable to leave, identify a safe location which may be nearby. This may include a Neighbourhood Safer Place.

This page may not be monitored or updated should a fire occur.

Please use the RFS website, RFS social media page, download the Fires Near Me app, and more importantly monitor conditions.

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“Sydney water has filled all the reservoirs to capacity” :-
Where did they get it from?

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Desalination Plant, Puss.

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Look I don’t understand all this.
So the Sutherland Shire fill up courtesy of desal.
It makes it sound as if there’s unlimited resources
available at the turn of a tap.

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… well, well…
“Sydney will face its strictest water restrictions in over a decade”
Premier Gladys Berejiklian announced on Thurs 21/11 that Sydney,
Blue Mountains & the Illawarra regions will be placed on level 2
restrictions on Dec 10 since dam levels are at 46%.

  • Source Yahoo News Australia

You only got to look in the Shire Gladys, all their reservoirs are full !

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I’m sure your local, Prospect, is full also, along with other reservoirs within the Sydney reason - I think it always works that way. The reservoirs are continually filled from the dams.

In any case, I would be happy to have 46% of my pay left at month’s end. Strewth, that’s almost half - talk about glass half empty or full. Of course Prof Flannery and his ‘the dams will never be full again’ mantra is still in play, even after Sydney’s dams overflowed since & Brisbane almost got washed out to see when their dams overflowed in 2011.

More water storage is the answer, for when it rains, & will provide for the future, but I can’t see more dams being built unless the inner city greenies and the NIMBY’s & other special interest groups actually run out of water at some point - when there handbag mutt dies of thirst they will change their view :slight_smile:

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Blacktown ‘heights’ mr walker. :wink:

Interesting though the number 46%, when we’ve reservoirs
choc full, a desalination plant purportedly desalinating and
a rural population as dry as a bone. So, how much water we
really got?

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Count me as one of Prof Flannery’s crew & an inner city greenie. Climate change doesn’t mean it won’t rain again, it means there will be more extreme weather events, such as prolonged drought & higher temperatures & evaporation as we are experiencing now. It also means when it rains, it might dump water infrequently & in huge quantities. Also it depends WHERE it rains - no point building more dams if it doesn’t rain in the catchment area!

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Bryan…what in your opinion is causing (your words) climate change?

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Your messiah actually said that the dams will never be filled again & then it rained and the dams overflowed and the water was lost. So your plan is to not build water storage because we don’t know when, at what intensity & how frequently it will rain - good plan!
The positioning of current dams is a whole 'nother story, but we can’t go back & change the past so we need to plan for the future.
Cheers

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climate has changed today Bryan from 10 years ago…its actually 2C cooler

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It serves their purpose to just quote the levels in the dams themselves. I have never seen figures for what’s in the ‘past the dam wall’ supply. Maybe they can’t work it out, but it would be pretty well constant, at least until there is no more a coming down from the dams.
The desal plant is reported to be able to supply 15 % of Sydney’s water. If they can get us to use less water, which they have, even way before current restrictions, I guess the output percentage will increase ie still the same output from the plant, but lower total usage.

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all the rubbish about dam capacity hides a major underlying issue.

The last time the dam was full we had 3.8m people in Sydney…we now have 5.2m people

And the only plan going forward is to put in place “restrictions” on users who pay for a service and supply but this ineptitude in planning dovetails the failure on our power supply

wait till the poor darlings in the inner city go to turn a light or their air conditioner on and there aint any power.

Governments have failed us the people by the most inept planning ever and the abandonment of their duty to the people.

The recent fires sadly are largely also a manifestation of this where there hasn’t been any clearing of fuel on the ground…added to a terrible drought it has all merged to create the firestorms we are seeing.

And this paralysis has affected both sides of the major parties.

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hold your thought mr walker it’s raining in Blacktown.

hang on… it stopped !

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