What is the impact of the Bushfire 2019/20?

The Kersbrook, SA fires of 2015 impacted Kersbrook's Wines, it actually made their Riesling burst with flavour, which each year has been reducing.
Last time I was there they were actually looking at techniques to use to replicate to get the same result.

 

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The issue is smoke on the grapes - gives the wine a very bitter, unpleasant vinegary, blergh taste so affected grapes are useless

 

@Lizzie yup I get that. Had lunch up in the Adelaide Hills winery last week, the table water which I'm guessing was sourced locally on site had an odd taste.
Didn't dare comment as their vineyards and shedding had been impacted.

 

Stock numbers have been dwindling due to drought, add stock losses due to bushfire. Food doesn't grow on trees you know. It takes months/years to get back up to full production with quality stock. Many areas have lost sheds which had some feed reserves, now nothing. This will impact negatively on prices in the shops.

This is just the boost the foreign owned dairy companies wanted, something to drive our local producers out of the market. We will now suffer the onslaught of imported UHT milk. They are not going to boost the prices paid to our producers and we will still get our $2.20/L milk at the cheap and nasty end of the supermarket chain.

There'll be both good and bad for towns - inflow of construction workers but they will often be camping on site where they're working, pubs will do a roaring trade . No boost for the motels (except when the insurance assessors come to town) but many of the food retailers will do OK. Won't do much for the services (hair dressers, bookshops, newsagents, clothing etc).

 

A few extra tradies is not going to replace 15,000 tourists that fill some of the towns for 5 weeks after Boxing Day

 

Aw, ladies are tradies too.

Seriously I admit I do not know what the full impact will be. It is all postulating at present.

I do wonder with the influx of workers what (a) the quality of the reconstruction will be (b) how much in additional cost will be loaded on and (c) building guarantee of the work.

 

where the money from the rebuilding will come from ?

Tax payers ?
insurance,?

redeveloped and sold back to market ?

i never been in a state/country where a natural disaster of this scale has happened before,

 

Sometimes they say ignorance is a bliss. Some days I feel this is a little remote to me; but some days I am really worried. The heat doesnt help and I find I've been using the AC a lot. The worst part is we cant see the end yet, fires are still blazing. Had said lots of prayers..

 

At least there is reason to believe all the locals will be uplifted by the rapidly diminishing population of looters...

 

I was talking to my fruit/vege guy. He said once the roads open up again a lot of our fruit and vege will be heading over east and prices here will go up.

 

I'll throw a few things into the thought mix.

Reducing the vulnerability of telecommunications, power, water. Interesting technical challenges and not only in material technology.

Recognising fires do not respect State boundaries and move to a national emergency site (came to me when having to swap between RFS NSW and CFA Vic sites.) Requires a shift in entrenched ownership concepts.

 

Very good point, it's a big wake-up call. Would that be something the Royal Commission will be looking at?

 

Assuming there is one it's possible. And then vested interests will attempt to have the recommendations watered down.

 

Technology is always going to fail in major fire events, as many people found out when trying to evac from the South Coast.
The banks had already closed their branches and wirh all the power down ,cash was king.
Cards were not working , phones were useless for payments and it was all about cash sales.
Happens over and over again, during major fires.
They even warn people now not to expect last minute text warnings during major fires as it becomes irrelevant once infrastructure is damaged by fire.

 

Certainly true now but it may not be true at some future date. We're an ingenious lot. I wouldn't have thought ten years ago I could use a phone to make payments. Can now.

 

This did make me rethink. Hubby always likes to carry a few bills, just in case, and I always poo-pooed it as I put everything on the card ... but I am now converted

 

The bushfires are terrible but it will lift the economy. In the short term production will be slow, but after a couple of months, recovery efforts will boost demand, employment and consumption. Every disaster has a silver lining- at least for the GDP.

 

Interesting read

Economic impact of Australia's bushfires set to exceed $4.4bn cost of Black Saturday

 

We actually have the technology , but its outdated , banks stopped using manual imprint devices for credit cards years ago as a cost cutting advantage.
On the power side its all about cost as well , no one wants to pay more for back up localized backup supplies for towns that suddenly need to replace miles and miles of burnt out above ground power lines.
Many people wont even pay for underground cabling in their area, its all about spending as little as possible.