By Taylah Eastwell
A group of Hills locals have joined forces in hopes of turning timber that fell during the June 9 storm into a commemorative community art project.
Choosing to look at the disaster from a positive side, residents have attended a number of meetings to discuss ways in which the timber could be reused in the community.
Creator of the Facebook page, ‘Rescue Logs – Keep our trees in the Dandenongs’, Julia Hall said one of the bigger projects being considered is a nature walk that follows the story of the storm using fallen logs.
“It will explain the pathway the storm took and have different points that talk about a significant event from the storm, whether that be a tree into a house or the many trees that impacted Mt Dandenong Primary School as well as the many stories of human resilience,” Ms Hall said.
“Telling our story and reliving that is part of our healing journey and everyone at our meetings has agreed. It’s really important to talk about it so you process it because the more we process it we realise we survived and came out the other end,” she said.
According to Ms Hall, the meetings have been full of emotion, with some committee members having lost their homes on the devastating night.
“It’s pretty full on but it’s just amazing. We all want to see something good come out of this and they’ve all got such positive attitudes. The whole group is very like minded around the fact that we want to use trees that have already fallen for something spectacular in the Dandenong Ranges. We are all so different but have this common cause,” she said.
“Everybody has been able to tell their story of the night and their experience and why they want to be a part of this, which is very much part of the healing process for people to tell their story and share it with others who also went through similar things. It’s nice to be able to share with people who were there, because many people off the mountain still don’t understand what it was like,” Ms Hall said.
While Covid-19 restrictions quickly put an end to face-to-face meetings, the group has continued on, having conducted meetings with architects and council virtually.
Ms Hall said Yarra Ranges Council “loved” the idea and are really interested in the proposal of the walk for Kalorama Park.
The group have submitted a proposal to council and are expecting to be assigned a case manager in the near future to assist with anything else they may need to provide council with regarding the project.
One of the group members is in charge of researching incorporation so the group can begin raising money towards the end goal.
The walk isn’t expected to be complete for a few years to allow timber the chance to dry out.
“It takes around two years for it to dry out. The hardest thing now is working out exactly what we want to do so we can cut it into pieces that can be used for what we want in two years time because with logs you mill it into what you want and then dry it in that form.
The group are also in discussions with council about creating a memorial using a fallen tree.
“At the moment we have two sites we are going to propose, the first being in Kalorama Park where a gum tree has fallen over. It’s in a nice position as you drive down the hill and turn left. We are thinking of creating that as a memorial to the storm and a place of reflection for people to sit and read the story and understand what happened here on the night,” Ms Hall said.
“The second place is Green Trees Reserve where there is a big tree down with a huge root ball. Because it’s a reserve that doesn’t get used much it lends itself to being developed into something,” she said.
Ms Hall said that by the time all of these visions come to fruition people who have been displaced will be back living in their homes.
“We will have all these beautiful stories of mother nature dropping the trees but not hurting the humans and those resilient stories of the rebuild for many. The projects will be about those stories of rebuilding after the storm and hopefully about how we have reused these logs in our rebuilds, decks, furniture and in the park,” Ms Hall said.
