I have been contacted by a few people in recent days who are also feeling stressed at the coordination problems and absence of commonsense and compassion on the ground. A CEO of a tech company drove up to Flowerdale on Monday with a load of supplies such as toiletries and other essentials and was told at the Flowerdale roadblock to take the stuff to Clayton, maybe a call to the pub by the roadblock dudes could have got the stuff in without compromising the "residents only" policy.
Another industry colleague took a whole week off and set up a mobile internet cafe in a truck at the Whittlesea relief centre complete with staff on the ground to assist. He had nothing but grief from the authorities from the local and state government authorities. Given that homeless victims cannot access information this is an invaluable service and I used it myself on Sunday. Sort of weird that the Scientologists are allowed to run a massage tent but a tech guy cant offer free web access. Anyway he didn't move and kept it going. He said all week he was helping residents frustrated by the lack of information.
It is interesting that many of the most useful things have been self organised like fireupdates.org, the bushfirehousing website, the #bushfires twitterers like @retrogrrl @geehall @peace_ @cfaupdates and @rexster (that is me) and any other twitterers that I forgot to mention. (i am in a train and my connection just dropped so i cant check)
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