It's not much short of apocalyptic.
The fires have directly affected a few of the band, some family evacuations, at least a few of our mates have lost homes, a few have been injured and the smoke knocked me for a loop.
Even our Golden Roadie, Carl, has been out there with the VFS, putting out flames.
We're still doing tour planning and dealing with last minute stuff.
As usual, when the blog is quiet, I am doing stuff offline. Although recently that involved a week getting over a chest infection from the smoke.
What a time.
Getting ready for the tour has continued and normally we stay quiet on the ups and downs of touring because That Is The Way.
In particular, under the circumstances, any difficulties we face in doing tour stuff is small trouble in comparison to the fires.
We tour through the south coast as often as we can, it's one of the prettiest places on earth, and it's been savaged by these conditions and the fires.
I keep seeing Musicians getting ready to do benefit concerts. But the disaster isn't over yet and our 'thoughts and prayers' and even our donations are not as directly useful as our respective state and federal governments stepping in and treating this as the disaster it is.
A state of emergency has been declared in NSW finally.
I get the feeling that we are so used to bushfires that we shrugged off how bad it can be.
Sydney is not prepared for this level of disaster. Our houses are not built to keep out the smoke.
Those living in the Bush have better understanding of the nature of the danger, they are better informed and prepared these days. The toll is higher in property than lives, thanks to better planning and evacuation.
The loss of bush life and animals is staggering. Some of the pictures I have seen break my heart and I cannot share them here.
When we get through this and we all rally around to thank the firefighters and volunteers, to help the survivors, the friends and family, I hope we will collectively demand more resources and planning from our elected officials.
There is a growing level of awareness that these conditions and these events may become more prevalent, that this might not be just another in a recurring every-few-years bushfire pattern. This is starting to become an annual feature of life in Oz.
To our mates, stay safe, don't take any chances. To our community, we are in solidarity with you, all of us have reached out to those we can help with offers and what help we can provide; The few bucks raised at the small benefit we helped with down in Wollongong seems insufficient to the task.
Meanwhile we wait, and we hope.