The Beagle Editor,
Having arrived on the scene of the Friday truck fire just south of the Bergalia just minutes after it occurred, the following hours showed the fragility of our highways system and how unprepared we are for such an incident. I was some 500 meters from the scene with a clear view of the emergency vehicles and smoke. Responders from all emergency services were on the scene quickly and the local rural fire services played a big role in ferrying water to the scene and assisting with the control of traffic along the highway. Whilst just minutes from home at Tuross Head I waited an hour & fourty five minutes as darkness fell. There was an eerie feel about it as everyone realised they needed to turn their cars and lights off to conserve fuel and battery. Rural fire came along to advise it would likely be another two hours before the highway opened. I decided to turn around as did others and head back to Moruya and meet my wife also stuck further back. I felt sorry for the truck drivers parked near me, they had no way of turning around. Debrief. Heading back to Moruya had an end of world movie feel with cars lined up along the side of the road. Maybe they hadn't got the word it would be two more hours. There was no indication of a speed limit although we were cautious. There were pockets of road blocks. One where a rural fire vehicle had four large pulsating driving lights blinding us as we approached, we could not see there were people on the road until we passed the vehicle (mistake). We drove slowly trying to inform people it would be two more hours. Strangely as we got closer to Moruya cars we heading south at speed, how did they not know the road was blocked? Moruya, to my surprise no road blocks to inform people to stay in the town, why let vehicles through to get stuck in the dark? At the same time the highway was blocked in Wandandian for many hours and we also saw familiar accidents on the Clyde as well this week. We have a very fragile road network in need of urgent upgrade. Paul Lowry
Commentaires