When the floods soaked Shepparton’s streets in 2022, there were more people on them than ever.
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Some donned wading pants to walk through it, some sat in kayaks and stood on paddleboards and many mounted bicycles to tour around.
People were curious.
It was a significant natural event only seen every decade or so.
When it’s near where you live it feels almost essential to see it for yourself and document it.
My street was flooded. My house came very close to being inundated; it would have had the water peaked where it was predicted to, but thankfully it fell short.
And thankfully the motorised traffic had stopped travelling down the streets sending powerful waves surging towards our homes.
My garage and gardens did flood, leaving a damage bill of a few thousand dollars.
I got off lightly, but it still impacted me negatively.
Sadly, many of my neighbours were not so lucky, with their homes falling below the water level.
My kids and I were the only ones on our block who didn’t evacuate and, therefore, the morning after the night before’s peak, my inbox was as flooded as the estate with requests from my neighbours, asking me to check on and photograph their houses so they could see if their homes had survived.
I did feel invasive sticking my phone over people’s gates and in their windows as I took pictures for them.
But they couldn’t get back in for another day or two and may never have seen their own homes at the height of it had I not obliged.
The Age filmed me out the front of my newly “river-fronted” home, exhausted, with unbrushed hair, no makeup, drenched, smelly and wearing my least fancy yard clothes.
I was comfortable speaking with them.
Perhaps because my home was spared, so I wasn’t in a complete trauma cloud; perhaps because the event wasn’t an accident and was by no fault of my own, simply a natural disaster that we were all in together to varying degrees.
When the Longwood bushfire tore through our neighbouring shires in January, we all knew the situation was dire.
But it wasn’t until pictures started emerging from the fire zone that we got a glimpse of just how grim it was.
Ruffy CFA captain George Noye shared heartbreaking images of his burnt out town on Facebook almost as soon as he returned.
They were haunting to look at, but equal parts fascinating.
As someone who works in media, I’ve had to take unsettling images and be at uncomfortable scenes in the name of news.
It’s my job, but it doesn’t mean journalists and photographers do it easily or heartlessly.
My breath gets taken away, too.
I cry, I have moments I have to look away, moments I need to concentrate on my breathing.
So, ‘enjoy’ is not the word I’d used to describe how I feel about those jobs, but I believe they’re important to do.
People naturally want to be informed and I think we all deserve to know what’s happening both near us and across the other side of the world.
Sure, everyone on scene is a reporter now, whipping out their phones, going live, posting stories, documenting life in real time.
Testament to that are the several images we shared on our rolling coverage while the fires were burning, which were submitted by members of the public, residents who lived in the fire zone and firefighters who were at the fire fronts.
Because what happens when people on scene or authorised media don’t get the imagery out?
Curiosity kills cats.
And, it drives humans to become trauma tourists, often putting themselves in danger, getting in the way of emergency services and further traumatising victims.
It’s something those impacted by the bushfires have had to deal with now many roads in the fire zone have reopened.
When I visited the hub at Ruffy recently, nine weeks after the disaster, volunteers I spoke to expressed disappointment about people bringing their kids out to tour the area and putting cameras out the window while passing destroyed homes.
“It’s a bit insensitive,” they told me.
While people are free to roam the reopened public roads, the people who inhabit the hills on either side of them hope people will do so with grace.
“Do come and visit and come and say hi, but do it really respectfully,” they said.
“It’s not that we’re in a state of mourning, but we kind of are, and if you’re not sure, ask if it’s okay to take a photo.”
Many people will afford others that photo and a little chat to go with it (if they’re feeling up to it), so long as the people who are asking show a little bit of heart.
None of us know where tragedy or disaster will strike next, and if you’re affected, you too will appreciate benevolence.