It is 2:30pm on Friday 8th November 2019 in Port Macquarie.
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Outside is eerily dark. Not dark with cloud, but dark with an orange glow which suffuses everything with a weird light. It is scary.
No, it's not Armageddon, although it feels like it.
It is the result of the second bushfire in two weeks which is out of control and threatening housing, habitat and wildlife.
Not to mention all the other bushfires further away from the residential areas here on the Mid North Coast, or elsewhere in NSW, or across Australia.
In Port Macquarie, of course, we are lucky. We are next to the ocean, our Hastings River is still running, our reservoirs still have water in them. But we are still burning.
We are burning and running out of water because of the abnormally hot dry winter and spring. We are burning and running out of water because of drought.
We are burning and running out of water because in spite of the fact that scientists have been warning us for decades that climate change will bring about these devastating results, government after government has done nothing.
Janet Dawson
Port Macquarie