Rebuilding life at 71 – Q&A with NYE Bushfire Victim, Judy Smith

The 2019 New Year’s Eve bushfires that hit the South Coast impacted the lives of thousands of people. Lives were lost, animals were killed, homes and businesses were destroyed. The fires affected every person on the South Coast, and its impact will have lifelong effects.

71-year-old high school teacher, Judy Smith tragically lost her home in Malua Bay that day. She went through hell and back, being evacuated not just from her home, but also from the evacuation centre. Since then, Judy has found an unexpected kindness in strangers whilst coming to terms with her new reality.

I visited Judy who was staying at a friend’s rental house, to chat about her traumatic experience and how her life has dramatically changed.

Q: Start from the beginning. Where were you when the fires began to worsen?

A: The house that we lived in belongs to my daughter and her husband. My son, Ben and I were renting it from them. Part of the rental agreement was that we got low rent in return for having to move out during peak times so holidaymakers could stay as they had it listed on Airbnb. We had to leave a few days before the fire as a family was hiring it out. We rented a friend’s property on Tomakin road by the river, and had taken with us a suitcase of clothes and things like body boards, fishing rods – things you need for the holidays.

Q: When did you realise how serious the situation was?

A: A couple of days earlier we started getting embers – black embers falling in the swimming pool. I said to Ben, “This is not looking good”. We contacted the owner and explained what was happening – he was in New Zealand so he couldn’t do anything but he told us to get out if the fire started to get close.

Q: At what point did you realise that you had to evacuate?

A: I’d heard that they were door knocking people if their homes were under threat. I was nervous but not that concerned because we hadn’t been door knocked. Although I did pack the suitcases and had them by the door, just in case. Then of course, on New Year’s Eve morning, I got the alert [from the Rural Fire Service] at about 6:25am. It was saying to evacuate. I went and woke Ben up and said, “We’ve got to go”.

The smoke was getting thicker. There were hot embers dropping. We could see the sky darkening.

We were only four kilometres from Mogo [which was hit badly]. It was getting closer and closer. We just grabbed the last few things and jumped in the car and drove out. You could start to see the fire behind us on Tomakin road coming from Mogo. Then there was fire towards Guerilla Bay and fire towards Broulee. We were like, “Which way do we go?” We were stopped at a road block near Tomakin and the guy there said, “Oh sorry, we can’t tell you anything.” They had no communication [the service had dropped out] but he said, “Well we are telling people to go to Tomakin Club, as the evacuation point.” We drove there.

Q: What was it like at the evacuation centre?

A: It was really surreal. It was in darkness because they had no power. There were hundreds of people and dogs, and cats, and guinea pigs, and rabbits, and birds, and god knows what – all crammed in the club. It was unnaturally quiet. We were in the club for a while. You could feel it getting hotter and darker. We went outside and that was when it was that absolute black. The heat was just incredible. It was just so intense, and the hot ash flying through the air. Everyone was just standing there. Watching this play out. No one could believe what was happening. It was just so awful. I said to people,

“It’s not like the black of night because there’s no light, no stars, no moon, nothing. It’s hellish. It’s just like hell.”

Then we could see this horrible rolling red coming in, and people started to go back into the club. I thought no. I need to see. I know it sounds stupid, but I just wanted to see what was happening. I just walked up to the roundabout [a few hundred metres from the club] and there were police blockades. You could see this red over the black and there was just fire from all directions. I stood there, and took some photos until I could see flames erupting 100 metres down the road from me. I thought, “I think it’s time to get out of here”. I quickly got back to the club, and Ben was waiting for me. He said, “We’ve been told to evacuate. We can’t stay in the club”. We realised that the fire trucks couldn’t get through because all the roads were blocked. So, there was nothing coming. The club owners had decided that it was too dangerous so they told people to head down to the water. That’s what we did and that’s when the southerly wind came in. It was so cold after the heat and we just stood there, shivering watching this play out. Watching everywhere, on fire. It was like a glimpse of hell. People just stood there dazed. You could imagine people after a war just sort of feeling that sense of “this can’t be real, this can’t be true”.

Q: Did you have any communication with the outside world during this time?

A: I’d messaged my daughter who was in Sydney before the phones cut out.

I’d messaged her saying “we are leaving now”. And that’s all she heard for the next 48 hours. She didn’t know whether we’d got out or not.

She was frantic. My daughter is one of these cool, calm and collected people. She is always so composed. And yet she looked devastated the next time I saw her. She just didn’t know what was happening.

Q: Did you hear anything about your house in Malua Bay?

A: I got a message from the family in my house saying they’d been told to evacuate. In the message I was asked, “Is there anything you’d like us to save from the house?” The phones started losing service and I tried to send her a message saying, “yes”. I’ve got my photo albums in the corner of my wardrobe, and my mother’s vase which – I know it sounds crazy – but I didn’t have many things from my mother. But, I had this really beautiful vase that I’d bought over with me from England, and we’d moved around so many times and I always was really careful of this vase, because I loved it. I said in the message, “My photo albums and the vase!” Anyway, by the time the message did get through to her, she replied, “It was too late. I’m really sorry but we had to leave”.

Q: When were you able to find out if your house was okay?

A: After being at the club for a few hours, we drove down into Malua, we could see a crowd of people down at the Surf Club and a police barricade on Silven Street – which is the one that leads up to my street. As we drove up towards the barricade, I wound the window down and saw one of my ex-students who lived next door to me. She leant in through the window and she said,

“Miss, I’m ever so sorry. Your house is gone.”

We parked the car and got out and of course, the police wouldn’t let anyone through. We just stood there and we could see behind John’s house – which was on the corner – on fire. We couldn’t quite see ours. My other son who lives in Malua came down and he said, “I’m sorry mum, yes it’s gone.” We just stood there. We just couldn’t believe what we were seeing or hearing.

Q: When could you finally go and see what remained of your house?

A: We got back up there maybe – I don’t think it was the first day after, but maybe the second. We did the things that you’re not supposed to do. We ferreted around and then found out there’s probably asbestos in there but you know, you don’t think about that. We found a couple of little things. We found, on the gate, we’d had – the house was called Mimosa – there were some ceramic tiles that spelt out Mimosa with flowers on them. Being ceramic, they’d survived the heat. Oh, and a set of stainless steel bowls still nested inside each other but a very strange colour. I found a Bunnings solar light still there. Ben found books – I had so many books I lost. He found a thick book and it fell apart, like it was just dust. I had this big book my daughter had bought me about The Beatles and he found this little tiny bit of it that was a picture of one of The Beatles but then that just disintegrated too. And that’s about it. Very unreal.

Q: How have the last few months been since the fires?

A: I think the first thing was that we were so overwhelmed by everyone’s kindness. That was just something that we’d never experienced. My daughter-in-law set up a Go Fund Me page and I just couldn’t believe that people were donating to that. We started going through the process of applying for grants and trying to replace certificates and everyone was just so helpful. Someone came to put in a telephone line here so we could get the internet and he wouldn’t take payment. Just things like that. We were told by Anglicare to go to Moruya and they had this place called “Thread Together” which is a charity company in Sydney that gets designer label clothes that are either end of line or slightly damaged and donates them to homeless people. They decided to donate them to fire victims. We went in to just get one pair of jeans and they were like, “No have more! We’ve got plenty!”

People were just wonderful. That was humbling and unexpected.

I think there’s that feeling that I don’t really deserve it, even though the logical part of your brain says well – yes this is being done for people who are in this situation. But then the other part of you is saying “no but I don’t really deserve all this”. I suppose after a little while, you do start thinking more about the things that you’ve lost. You can’t replace those things that mean the most to you. That’s just something that every now and then hits you really hard. It’s like the stages of grief. We were so lucky to get this place to live in.

Q: How are you finding moving forwards from all of this now?

A: I lie in bed sort of visualising my bedroom and all the things I lost. It’s very hard not to get sad on a regular basis. I think one of the initial things I was most surprised about was when we decided to evacuate before the warning of the Saturday fires. We headed up to Sydney. We saw a postman delivering letters. I was like, “Oh my god! The world is still going on”. It was the weirdest feeling because all we’d had for three days was this living in some sort of catastrophe and yet the rest of the world was still operating. That came as quite a shock. I feel at a bit of a loss. Normally, I would be thinking, “I’ll go get some [casual teaching] work”. For the first time in my life, I’m sort of thinking I don’t really want to go. It’s not like me.

I just want to be cocooned more here. I don’t really feel like going out and doing things anymore.

I don’t feel that need to go out which I used to feel. I would always want to socialise. Now it’s like I just want to stay here. I’ve got to get past that stage I think.

Q: Will you rebuild?

A: My daughter and son-in-law are going to rebuild. The insurance they had was specifically to rebuild it exactly the way it was. They had to provide photos and plans. I looked at the specifications and everything is going to be as it was, except the materials will be different. It’s going to look like it did. So that’s really quite strange. The only problem is that we’re looking at maybe three years because the clearing of the property. It’s a lengthy process. I just hope I live long enough to move in and see it all again.

As I was leaving after speaking with Judy, her son Ben arrived home with Tupperware containers. Judy was overjoyed and leant into me saying, “It’s funny now that I get excited about little things like this.”

Find out how you can donate to bushfire victims like Judy here.