Rebuilding a town from the ground up

While Ipswich has been remembering twelve months since the floods, February 7th will be three years since Black Saturday…a day etched in the memory of all Australians when bushfires in Victoria claimed the lives of 173 people.
In a town of just 200 people Strathewen lost 27 of its residents, and it is the rebuilding of a town practically wiped out that is the subject of a fascinating new documentary on ABC1 on February 7th.
Filmmaker and Strathewen resident Celeste Greer decided to record how the town rebuilt itself, and how the lives of everyday people were affected. She wrote, directed and narrated the documentary herself, and the result is inspiring.
“I kind of think its true, and it’s a cliché, but character is something that is defined in times of crisis,” Celeste said from her home in Strathewen.
“Natural disasters push you, and you have to call on your own resources, then work out how much you’re prepared to give to others.”
The opening scene features a family who have just survived the fires by hiding between two water tanks, while everything around them burned. It is amazing footage, and one that shows the power of the fires.
“The people at the start of the documentary are friends of mine (including Bron Sparkes – pictured) and when they told me that they had this footage, I watched it and it just blew me away.
“It was only as I started filming that I realised that they would be interesting to follow, as there was no doubt they were going to rebuild their home. They’d had such a visceral experience of the fire that I was really drawn to them.”
Filmed in the days after the fire and over the next two and a half years, one of the weirdest things in the documentary is the eerie silence that remains after a bushfire.
“The Aussie bush is described as quiet, but its actually quite noisy with frogs, bugs and birds, particularly at night. There was a lot of wind the days before the fire, which was also noisy. Then when I returned home after the fire (she managed to escape with her children) there was this eerie silence…it felt very apocalyptic. No bugs, no sound, nothing.
“People told me it would grow back, and I thought they were insane…how could anything grow back after this? But to see the area now it’s amazing, there are such vibrant green colours, such bright life compared to the blackness after the fires.
“A bushfire totally exposes everything. There was a hidden community where houses are hiding in the bush, at the end of long driveways, and the bushfires were like an X-ray that just exposed everything.”
It would be easy for people to pack up and move after losing loved ones, but the community was strengthened by the resolve to rebuild.
“There’s a connection to the land and a sense of belonging, be it from the natural environment and the people around you. If you’ve lived in a rural community for thirty or forty years of your life, the concept of moving is quite confronting.”
Once the school was rebuilt, the healing for the children of the town began, and Celeste feels that the town’s kids have a maturity that you only find after experiencing a natural disaster.
“Those kids that have lost parents that’s something you can’t repair, but there are others who have seen their parents come together and manage through all this. They’ve seen a community unite, which is a very fortifying experience.
“I think my kids have a different understanding of death now compared to other children. When there are other disasters in the world, they are very interested. I don’t say to them ‘it won’t happen to us’, they know that these things can happen, and they understand that. They also have a great empathy for people in similar stressful situations. Ultimately throughout their lives if they can absorb this, that it will help them to relate to others and realise the hardships.
“I felt compelled to do this film because I know how the news cycle works. I thought if we were to learn anything from this, it was about how people put their lives back together. I needed to work it out for my own healing as well. It was the rebuilding that interested me, long after the headlines about the disaster had gone.
“Its uplifting for other people whether they’ve lived through a disaster or not, to see those who have been battered around by life, to find the energy to give something back.”
‘Then The Wind Changed’ screens on ABC1 8.30pm Tuesday Feb 7

Check out other stories in CityWest magazine here.