By Olivia Condous
The Moorabool Shire council and residents are commemorating the one-year anniversary of wind storms that devastated the region on the evening of June 9 2021.
The storm impacted many residents’ properties and homes and caused more than 1000 homes to lose power and phone services for more than 24 hours.
The following 12 months was an intense recovery process, with council, emergency services and recovery agencies working to restore the community.
Korweinguboora resident Andrew Phillips said one of the most difficult challenges after the storm was the psychological recovery.
“Winds at night still spook us, we use earplugs on most windy days,” Mr Phillips said.
He said it was hard in the lead up to June 9, the date that marked the one year anniversary of the storm, but it felt good to get past it.
“The psychological recovery is still continuing, but it’s improving compared to six months ago, it’s better now.”
Mr Phillips said one of the positives that came out of the experience was becoming close friends with his neighbours.
“These things remind you of people’s generosity, we catch up with them all the time now,” he said.
“They’ve become our best friends in the community and we helped each other with the clean up and recovery, it’s brought the whole community closer.”
Mr Phillips also said the council provided a lot of support to help them with their recovery journey.
“We got a lot of assistance from the council, they checked on us a lot to see how we were doing and offered us psychological support networks and help to take down some trees.”
Blackwood CFA captain Ross Hall said while recovery was still ongoing, the issues the storm had exposed with power supply and telecommunications meant that improvements were being made as a result.
“There’s been a power issue with our telephone exchange for many years now, but Telstra have come on board and we think we’re going to be able to get around it,” he said.
“Things are looking better, it pushed things along.”
Council will host two events for residents to connect over the anniversary, with community gatherings and the launch of the Storm Recovery Book.
The book consists of a collection of stories, interviews and photos put together by the council storm recovery team to document the journey over the last 12 months.
On June 19 there will be a community catch up at Blackwood Recreation Reserve from 11am to 3pm and another at the Korweinguboora Recreation Reserve on June 26 at the same time.
The events will provide residents with a chance to chat to representatives from emergency services and recovery agencies, as well as a free spit roast lunch, face painting, activities for kids and a free copy of the Storm Recovery Book.
Moorabool Shire council chief executive Derek Madden said the community gatherings were important in acknowledging the major impact the June storm had.
“These events are a chance for the storm impacted community to catch up with emergency service responders and recovery agencies one year on,” Mr Madden said.
“We appreciate that recovery is still ongoing, and there is further work to be done. The Storm Recovery team are working on future projects to further support impacted communities.”
The Storm Recovery Book was designed to give community members a creative outlet for their storm stories and experiences.
“With more than 1,000 properties affected across our Shire, this book acknowledges the collective impact the storm had on our community, and the ongoing recovery journey,” Mr Madden said.
“As storm recovery funding is still being announced by the State Government, Moorabool’s Storm Recovery Team will continue to apply for funding to assist our communities on the recovery journey.”
