Bushfires in Australia's Capital: The Scariest Day of my lfe
Diary Entry
from 
JoeUser Forums
JoeUser Forums
Two years ago in January, Canberra was hit by massive bushfires that destroyed more houses than Ash Wednesday did. I was visiting Canberra at the time and as they raged, I wrote a diary entry by the candlelight. As the 2nd anniversary approaches, I thought I would have a look back at how I felt on the scariest day of my life.
In January, as per every year, I went home to Canberra to visit old
friends. I’d been there for a few weeks, having a wonderful time with
all my friends that I’d known for years. I felt like I was settling
back in and partying like I had in the old days before I moved to
Brisbane. On the news there were reports that bushfires were burning
through Namadgi National Park, a beautiful nature reserve where I’d
enjoyed many a picnic in my youth that lies a few k’s out of town.
But, it’s the Aussie bush and that happens right? No one was too
concerned and so we spent the day playing around in the swimming
pool at my friend’s place. Occasionally bits of black ash dropped
into the pool, much to the annoyance of my friend’s Dad who has to
clean it. But it was all a bit too surreal for us to really think
about what it meant.
On the Saturday, the fires really started to burn. In the morning I
awoke early, boiling hot and dried out. 7am. 35 degrees Celsius. The
backyard at my friend Alice’s place was lit in an orange haze. The
shadow of dark clouds moved across the lawn. When I looked up, I had
never seen a cloudier day. But there was no threat of rain. The cloud
that covered the sky was smoke. Black and grey smoke covering the
sky, and low.
Nonetheless, it was a holiday and I had arranged to spend the day at
Lake Burley Griffin with two mates, Quix and Kenny. We found a
secluded part of the lake under some nice big green willows. The wind
kept getting stronger and the sky still looked like something out of
Dante’s Inferno. But the water was cool and provided relief from the
red furnace that we could see burning behind the mountain on the far
side of the lake. It was quite spectacular to see the blood red
flames gradually coming over the hill. They flicked out like a
lizard’s tongue, flashes of colour jumping around in the cloud of
smoke, which was starting to fill the air even on our side of the
lake. We were still unaware of the graveness of the situation
(perhaps somewhat foolishly in retrospect, but bear in mind that
Canberra had never really had a bushfire season before and you never
think this soirt of thing will happen to you). So because we thought
the fire was still in the bush, we stayed at the lake and enjoyed the
refreshing water and each other’s company.
Several times we watched the famous Elvis helicopter drop down into
the lake to pick up water. Then it lifted and the red bucket
ubderneath spilled everywhere as it was blown about in the wind. The
helicopter disappeared into the smoke and dumped its load on the
fire. We couldn’t notice much effect, but we assumed the firies had
it all under control. They knew what they were doing.
As the afternnon wore on, the smoke really started to billow out of
the dark red flames that were now huge (as they probably always were,
but they were obviously getting closer). Waves were forming on the
lake. The orange haze across the sky gave the appearnace of a sunset,
but it was only 2pm and the sun glowed red, high above our heads.
Thbe rest of the time, the clouds blew across the sky and blocked out
the sun. You had to remind yourself it was smoke, not clouds. It just
didn’t seem real.
I was having difficulty breathing, even though I don’t have asthma. I
was coughing and choking hard as we walked back to the car. We walked
past a wedding that was taking place on this usually romantic scene.
I only hope their houses weren’t bruning down as the vows were being
taken. This was the chilling thought that crossed my mind later.
Quix, Kenny and I decided to head into the suburb of Lyons, which is
just next to the Woden Plaza (which is sort of Canberra’s equivalent
to Indooroopilly Shoppingtown). Several of my friends, including the
one I was staying with, Alice, live on the other side of the plaza to
Lyons.
We drove through the streets of Lyons, and suddenly it all hit home.
On the side of the road as we drove down it, were houises on fire.
Right before my eyes, only metres away, bushfires in ordinary
people’s backyards. The grass that popped up in the gutter was
flaming. We couldn’t see more than ten metres down the road, as the
smoke was thicker than a Canberra winter morning mist. It was at this
point that our hearts started pounding like I’ve never felt before.
In unison Kenny and I yelled “Holy Fuck! Let’s go back!”, assuming
Quix would make a U-turn. Above our heads, the telegraph poles that
lined the street were on fire. I had visions of it burning through
the electrical wires and landing sizzling on the car. This probably
happened only minutes after we left.
No matter how much I’d seen bushfires and disasters on the news and
in movies, I could never have been prepared for the sight of an
actual house burning down. The frames of the houses were still
intact, yet the flames clung to the houses, greedily eating away at
these people’s homes. There were no firefighters, and as far as we
could see, the fires were left to roam free, claiming whatever they
wanted, destroying everything they could jump to. The fire just sat
on people’s rooves, flickering away, and turning these homes into
black ash. The homes of fairly low-income people, being in Lyons. I
believe some of them don’t even have insurance. These people were
walking to their cars, bringing items that they considered precious
from their homes that they had loaded into their arms. Meanwhile,
behind them was just a large orange furnace that was now their
backyard. There were nmo swings, no lawn, no plants, not even air.
Just fire roaring away in their backyard. By now they had given up on
hosing anything, they knew it was futile by this stage. I can’t begin
to describe what this scene was like. I can still see it clearly and
it still shocks me. I still cry when I think of this picture of
ordinary people walking around their street as their homes became
nothing. The houses fell to the ground and there was nothing but
crumbly blackness left. And still lots of fire that seemed alive. No
blockbuster movie could ever portray the fear I felt in that
situation. No Semper article or any language could ever describe
adequately the emotions.This town had been my home for almost two
decades and now it was on fire and in terror. And just plain fucking
scared.
Strangely enough, the driver of the car, Quix started to turn around
but then his rubberneck instinct got the better of him and he strted
to drive down the road a bit further. We couldn’t even see down the
road as he headed towards a blanket of smoke. For all we knew he was
about to drive us into a roaring inferno and the car would blow up.
Fortunately we immdeiately convinced him to turn the fuck around and
we got the hell out of there.
As we drove past Woden Plaza, the traffic lights were all off. My
best friend was working at Woolworths that day, and it turned out she
had not yet been sent home to defend it. Kenny joked that the traffic
seemed to flow better without the traffic lights, and I was amazed at
the cautiousness and courteousness of the drivers going through the
intersection. I heard on the radio that this was not the case at all
the intersections. \
“Holy Fuck!”. This was all any of us could say as we drove back.
“Holy Fuck”. I repeated it and then just stared forward in shgock for
silent, endless minutes. There was no other way to put it really, and
it seemed my friends agreed as they used the same turn of phrase. For
the first time in my life I was 100% lost for words. I was in a
complete state of shock.
We went back to Alice’s place to collect my suitcase. Her house was
surrounded by bush so we thought it would be better if I stayed with
Kenny. I quickly thanked her parents for letting me stay as they
hurriedly packed family photos into the boot of their car. It just
wasn’t the time to worry about saying thanks. I quickly grabbed my
clothes off the lines and got the hell out of there. I was still
having a lot of trouble breathing properly, though this was largely
from panic now rather than smoke inhalation. As we left Alice’s
house, the smoke alarm went off, which we thought was quite the
obvious understatement. Their pool was now filled with black leaves
that were dropping from the sky.
I began to cry as we hopped in the car and I said to Kenny that I was
such a girl. But he assured me that it was normal to worry when you
had just seen your home town burning to a crisp out of control. I was
sweating hard with panic and from the heat. At 3pm it was as dark as
the middle of the night. Black smoke just envelopped the air. It was
all you could see. Or all you couldn’t see.
There were fires on the other side of Kenny’s suburb, Kambah. We
could see them easily by the time we got to his place, which took
quite a bit longer due to road closures. Several of the roads we used
were closed only minutes after we had driven on them.
I called my parents back in Brisbane to reassure them that I was
okay. The phone call turned out to be more a case of them reassuring
me that I was okay. Mum spent her time trying to calm me down and
assuring me that I wasn’t going to die as long as I kept my head and
stuck with Kenny’s family who would look after me. Even so we kept
telling each other that we loved each other very much to make sure
that we knew that. A part of me had hoped Mum would tell me to
immediately hop on a plane back home, but she didn’t, which I think
was the more sensible voice of someone who was a bit more detached
from the situation.
I got off the phone and a neighbour’s garbage had caught on fire from
a flying ember. Fortunately they put it out straight away, but we all
started hosing down our houses and gardens. Only two days beforehand,
very strict water restrictions were in place due to water shortages
that still continued and would be exacerbated after the fires. There
was more than just water flowing from the taps too so it seemed there
were going to be contamination problems aswell.
I wasn’t sure if it was more or less reassuring that I didn’t liove
here anymore. My heart still jumped when the radio mentioned that my
old suburb was in danger as the pine forest that was out the back of
the suburb was burning rapidly. Although I didn’t have to worry about
my own home or family, I also didn’t have them around to comfort me,
and I found that I wound up worrying about every single one of my
friends and hoping that they were okay. I was completely unsure of
where to go, who to stay with. I felt lost without a home of comfort
to hide in. I had to rely on the generosity of others to take me in,
look after me, and take me with them if we needed to evacuate.
My friend Zaid lived in a different part of Lyons to the part I’d
seen but I had no idea of where the fire was spreading. Susy lived
near Lyons and had no car and I didn’t know how she would evacuate if
it came to that. Bennita lived in Stirling, which is surrounded by
bush. I wanted to find something I could do to help. I wanted to know
that my friends were okay. But most phone lines were down and I was
unable to help. I felt guilty that I wasn’t a volunteer firefighter.
I wondered if I could help hose down the fires. But instead all I
could do was pace up and down as the radio provided more worrying
updates. I wrote this account by candlelight with a pen and paper.
There was no electricity that night, so there was no computer and no
light. We kept a large bucket of water next to the candle.
Several children called into the radio talking to the announcers
about fires that were near their homes. This was very hard to listen
to and I can still hear the inocent fear in their voices and it still
makes me cry with fear for them. You just want to protect them from
this horrific circumstance, but you couldn’t. And the truth was that
you were no less scared or helpless than they were. This was all a
completely new experience to me too.
As we looked out the window, the surrounding mourntains were blacked
out. Mountains of charcoal, glowing orange with embers.
In the following days I made several calls to people I hadn’t planned
on seeing on my trip to arrange to catch up with them. Kenny’s family
met half their street for the first time and Kenny even found he had
a fairly cute girl next door. As it turned out I would have been
safer staying at Alice’s house.The fires came within a kilometre of
Kenny’s house, though because of the lack of firepower, we had no
idea and there were no evacuations. As we drove around in the
following week, the nearest destroyed home was three kilometres away,
and several closer houses had lost their backyards, but had been
fortunate enough to find that a freak change of the direction of the
wind had saved their homes at the last minute. Black trees and
branches had fallen across surrounding roads and the place was a
silent mess. I don’t think anyone knew quite what to do in the
aftermath. I heard a lot of great stories come out of the fires.
There was some great generosity and fighting spirit that came out of
this disaster, and I think we showed the nation that Canberra is as
full of Aussie battler spirit and “mateship” (for want of a better
word) as anywhere else in the country. It’s not a town full of
fatcats and politicians. This was a town of ordinary people who came
together in a time of crisis and stood up to be counted. We went
through all the human emotions than anyone does in a crisis and we
felt the pain of the aftermath like anyone. Anyone who has tried to
state otherwise is saying more about their own human spirit than
Canberra’s. Now hopping down off the soapbox.
There were some awful stories too. I don’t understand how some people
could react to this situation by looting. Actually stealing other
peoples’ property while they’re at their most vulnerable. I just
don’t understand. Nor can I understand the people who lit fires.
There is no word to describe them. I don’t feel anger towards them.
Just despair that they could actr that way.
Kenny lost his workplace in the fire. He was a volunteer at Mt
tsromlo Observatory, which was one of the best Scientific
Observatories in the world until the fires. A lot of important
knowledge was lost, and two large telescopes. I heard that a girl I
went to school with lost her house. She was one of three houses in
the middle of Curtin that burned down because of a flying ember.
Several of my friends lived in Duffy. They have gone through a lot of
“survivor’s guilt” as they stood in front pf their homes, the only
house in their street that hadn’t been turned into a pile of rubble.
We still didn’t see the sky for the final week of my visit as the
clouds hung over, as did a feeling of being drained, lifeless and
depressed. It was as though your body was drained of blood and your
skin just hung on your bones, drooping down. That’s how I feel
writing this right now.
I have tried to write down my experience of the 18th of January 2003,
but it is beyond my understanding even now and beyond your
imagination as you read this unless you have lived through something
similar. It must be said that the firies who stood up to the fires
are the most incredible and brave people and we owe them so much. No
doubt they made mistakes, but given the pressure of the situation,
that is perfectly understandable. I still think that there’s only one
thing I can say to sum it all up. Holy fuck.
In January, as per every year, I went home to Canberra to visit old
friends. I’d been there for a few weeks, having a wonderful time with
all my friends that I’d known for years. I felt like I was settling
back in and partying like I had in the old days before I moved to
Brisbane. On the news there were reports that bushfires were burning
through Namadgi National Park, a beautiful nature reserve where I’d
enjoyed many a picnic in my youth that lies a few k’s out of town.
But, it’s the Aussie bush and that happens right? No one was too
concerned and so we spent the day playing around in the swimming
pool at my friend’s place. Occasionally bits of black ash dropped
into the pool, much to the annoyance of my friend’s Dad who has to
clean it. But it was all a bit too surreal for us to really think
about what it meant.
On the Saturday, the fires really started to burn. In the morning I
awoke early, boiling hot and dried out. 7am. 35 degrees Celsius. The
backyard at my friend Alice’s place was lit in an orange haze. The
shadow of dark clouds moved across the lawn. When I looked up, I had
never seen a cloudier day. But there was no threat of rain. The cloud
that covered the sky was smoke. Black and grey smoke covering the
sky, and low.
Nonetheless, it was a holiday and I had arranged to spend the day at
Lake Burley Griffin with two mates, Quix and Kenny. We found a
secluded part of the lake under some nice big green willows. The wind
kept getting stronger and the sky still looked like something out of
Dante’s Inferno. But the water was cool and provided relief from the
red furnace that we could see burning behind the mountain on the far
side of the lake. It was quite spectacular to see the blood red
flames gradually coming over the hill. They flicked out like a
lizard’s tongue, flashes of colour jumping around in the cloud of
smoke, which was starting to fill the air even on our side of the
lake. We were still unaware of the graveness of the situation
(perhaps somewhat foolishly in retrospect, but bear in mind that
Canberra had never really had a bushfire season before and you never
think this soirt of thing will happen to you). So because we thought
the fire was still in the bush, we stayed at the lake and enjoyed the
refreshing water and each other’s company.
Several times we watched the famous Elvis helicopter drop down into
the lake to pick up water. Then it lifted and the red bucket
ubderneath spilled everywhere as it was blown about in the wind. The
helicopter disappeared into the smoke and dumped its load on the
fire. We couldn’t notice much effect, but we assumed the firies had
it all under control. They knew what they were doing.
As the afternnon wore on, the smoke really started to billow out of
the dark red flames that were now huge (as they probably always were,
but they were obviously getting closer). Waves were forming on the
lake. The orange haze across the sky gave the appearnace of a sunset,
but it was only 2pm and the sun glowed red, high above our heads.
Thbe rest of the time, the clouds blew across the sky and blocked out
the sun. You had to remind yourself it was smoke, not clouds. It just
didn’t seem real.
I was having difficulty breathing, even though I don’t have asthma. I
was coughing and choking hard as we walked back to the car. We walked
past a wedding that was taking place on this usually romantic scene.
I only hope their houses weren’t bruning down as the vows were being
taken. This was the chilling thought that crossed my mind later.
Quix, Kenny and I decided to head into the suburb of Lyons, which is
just next to the Woden Plaza (which is sort of Canberra’s equivalent
to Indooroopilly Shoppingtown). Several of my friends, including the
one I was staying with, Alice, live on the other side of the plaza to
Lyons.
We drove through the streets of Lyons, and suddenly it all hit home.
On the side of the road as we drove down it, were houises on fire.
Right before my eyes, only metres away, bushfires in ordinary
people’s backyards. The grass that popped up in the gutter was
flaming. We couldn’t see more than ten metres down the road, as the
smoke was thicker than a Canberra winter morning mist. It was at this
point that our hearts started pounding like I’ve never felt before.
In unison Kenny and I yelled “Holy Fuck! Let’s go back!”, assuming
Quix would make a U-turn. Above our heads, the telegraph poles that
lined the street were on fire. I had visions of it burning through
the electrical wires and landing sizzling on the car. This probably
happened only minutes after we left.
No matter how much I’d seen bushfires and disasters on the news and
in movies, I could never have been prepared for the sight of an
actual house burning down. The frames of the houses were still
intact, yet the flames clung to the houses, greedily eating away at
these people’s homes. There were no firefighters, and as far as we
could see, the fires were left to roam free, claiming whatever they
wanted, destroying everything they could jump to. The fire just sat
on people’s rooves, flickering away, and turning these homes into
black ash. The homes of fairly low-income people, being in Lyons. I
believe some of them don’t even have insurance. These people were
walking to their cars, bringing items that they considered precious
from their homes that they had loaded into their arms. Meanwhile,
behind them was just a large orange furnace that was now their
backyard. There were nmo swings, no lawn, no plants, not even air.
Just fire roaring away in their backyard. By now they had given up on
hosing anything, they knew it was futile by this stage. I can’t begin
to describe what this scene was like. I can still see it clearly and
it still shocks me. I still cry when I think of this picture of
ordinary people walking around their street as their homes became
nothing. The houses fell to the ground and there was nothing but
crumbly blackness left. And still lots of fire that seemed alive. No
blockbuster movie could ever portray the fear I felt in that
situation. No Semper article or any language could ever describe
adequately the emotions.This town had been my home for almost two
decades and now it was on fire and in terror. And just plain fucking
scared.
Strangely enough, the driver of the car, Quix started to turn around
but then his rubberneck instinct got the better of him and he strted
to drive down the road a bit further. We couldn’t even see down the
road as he headed towards a blanket of smoke. For all we knew he was
about to drive us into a roaring inferno and the car would blow up.
Fortunately we immdeiately convinced him to turn the fuck around and
we got the hell out of there.
As we drove past Woden Plaza, the traffic lights were all off. My
best friend was working at Woolworths that day, and it turned out she
had not yet been sent home to defend it. Kenny joked that the traffic
seemed to flow better without the traffic lights, and I was amazed at
the cautiousness and courteousness of the drivers going through the
intersection. I heard on the radio that this was not the case at all
the intersections. \
“Holy Fuck!”. This was all any of us could say as we drove back.
“Holy Fuck”. I repeated it and then just stared forward in shgock for
silent, endless minutes. There was no other way to put it really, and
it seemed my friends agreed as they used the same turn of phrase. For
the first time in my life I was 100% lost for words. I was in a
complete state of shock.
We went back to Alice’s place to collect my suitcase. Her house was
surrounded by bush so we thought it would be better if I stayed with
Kenny. I quickly thanked her parents for letting me stay as they
hurriedly packed family photos into the boot of their car. It just
wasn’t the time to worry about saying thanks. I quickly grabbed my
clothes off the lines and got the hell out of there. I was still
having a lot of trouble breathing properly, though this was largely
from panic now rather than smoke inhalation. As we left Alice’s
house, the smoke alarm went off, which we thought was quite the
obvious understatement. Their pool was now filled with black leaves
that were dropping from the sky.
I began to cry as we hopped in the car and I said to Kenny that I was
such a girl. But he assured me that it was normal to worry when you
had just seen your home town burning to a crisp out of control. I was
sweating hard with panic and from the heat. At 3pm it was as dark as
the middle of the night. Black smoke just envelopped the air. It was
all you could see. Or all you couldn’t see.
There were fires on the other side of Kenny’s suburb, Kambah. We
could see them easily by the time we got to his place, which took
quite a bit longer due to road closures. Several of the roads we used
were closed only minutes after we had driven on them.
I called my parents back in Brisbane to reassure them that I was
okay. The phone call turned out to be more a case of them reassuring
me that I was okay. Mum spent her time trying to calm me down and
assuring me that I wasn’t going to die as long as I kept my head and
stuck with Kenny’s family who would look after me. Even so we kept
telling each other that we loved each other very much to make sure
that we knew that. A part of me had hoped Mum would tell me to
immediately hop on a plane back home, but she didn’t, which I think
was the more sensible voice of someone who was a bit more detached
from the situation.
I got off the phone and a neighbour’s garbage had caught on fire from
a flying ember. Fortunately they put it out straight away, but we all
started hosing down our houses and gardens. Only two days beforehand,
very strict water restrictions were in place due to water shortages
that still continued and would be exacerbated after the fires. There
was more than just water flowing from the taps too so it seemed there
were going to be contamination problems aswell.
I wasn’t sure if it was more or less reassuring that I didn’t liove
here anymore. My heart still jumped when the radio mentioned that my
old suburb was in danger as the pine forest that was out the back of
the suburb was burning rapidly. Although I didn’t have to worry about
my own home or family, I also didn’t have them around to comfort me,
and I found that I wound up worrying about every single one of my
friends and hoping that they were okay. I was completely unsure of
where to go, who to stay with. I felt lost without a home of comfort
to hide in. I had to rely on the generosity of others to take me in,
look after me, and take me with them if we needed to evacuate.
My friend Zaid lived in a different part of Lyons to the part I’d
seen but I had no idea of where the fire was spreading. Susy lived
near Lyons and had no car and I didn’t know how she would evacuate if
it came to that. Bennita lived in Stirling, which is surrounded by
bush. I wanted to find something I could do to help. I wanted to know
that my friends were okay. But most phone lines were down and I was
unable to help. I felt guilty that I wasn’t a volunteer firefighter.
I wondered if I could help hose down the fires. But instead all I
could do was pace up and down as the radio provided more worrying
updates. I wrote this account by candlelight with a pen and paper.
There was no electricity that night, so there was no computer and no
light. We kept a large bucket of water next to the candle.
Several children called into the radio talking to the announcers
about fires that were near their homes. This was very hard to listen
to and I can still hear the inocent fear in their voices and it still
makes me cry with fear for them. You just want to protect them from
this horrific circumstance, but you couldn’t. And the truth was that
you were no less scared or helpless than they were. This was all a
completely new experience to me too.
As we looked out the window, the surrounding mourntains were blacked
out. Mountains of charcoal, glowing orange with embers.
In the following days I made several calls to people I hadn’t planned
on seeing on my trip to arrange to catch up with them. Kenny’s family
met half their street for the first time and Kenny even found he had
a fairly cute girl next door. As it turned out I would have been
safer staying at Alice’s house.The fires came within a kilometre of
Kenny’s house, though because of the lack of firepower, we had no
idea and there were no evacuations. As we drove around in the
following week, the nearest destroyed home was three kilometres away,
and several closer houses had lost their backyards, but had been
fortunate enough to find that a freak change of the direction of the
wind had saved their homes at the last minute. Black trees and
branches had fallen across surrounding roads and the place was a
silent mess. I don’t think anyone knew quite what to do in the
aftermath. I heard a lot of great stories come out of the fires.
There was some great generosity and fighting spirit that came out of
this disaster, and I think we showed the nation that Canberra is as
full of Aussie battler spirit and “mateship” (for want of a better
word) as anywhere else in the country. It’s not a town full of
fatcats and politicians. This was a town of ordinary people who came
together in a time of crisis and stood up to be counted. We went
through all the human emotions than anyone does in a crisis and we
felt the pain of the aftermath like anyone. Anyone who has tried to
state otherwise is saying more about their own human spirit than
Canberra’s. Now hopping down off the soapbox.
There were some awful stories too. I don’t understand how some people
could react to this situation by looting. Actually stealing other
peoples’ property while they’re at their most vulnerable. I just
don’t understand. Nor can I understand the people who lit fires.
There is no word to describe them. I don’t feel anger towards them.
Just despair that they could actr that way.
Kenny lost his workplace in the fire. He was a volunteer at Mt
tsromlo Observatory, which was one of the best Scientific
Observatories in the world until the fires. A lot of important
knowledge was lost, and two large telescopes. I heard that a girl I
went to school with lost her house. She was one of three houses in
the middle of Curtin that burned down because of a flying ember.
Several of my friends lived in Duffy. They have gone through a lot of
“survivor’s guilt” as they stood in front pf their homes, the only
house in their street that hadn’t been turned into a pile of rubble.
We still didn’t see the sky for the final week of my visit as the
clouds hung over, as did a feeling of being drained, lifeless and
depressed. It was as though your body was drained of blood and your
skin just hung on your bones, drooping down. That’s how I feel
writing this right now.
I have tried to write down my experience of the 18th of January 2003,
but it is beyond my understanding even now and beyond your
imagination as you read this unless you have lived through something
similar. It must be said that the firies who stood up to the fires
are the most incredible and brave people and we owe them so much. No
doubt they made mistakes, but given the pressure of the situation,
that is perfectly understandable. I still think that there’s only one
thing I can say to sum it all up. Holy fuck.
