A community bushfire meeting called by Lithgow Council last week revealed a pleasing cavalcade of organisations keen to help those hit hard by the most destructive fires in our history.
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It was a well organised and informative session that saw concerned residents - far more than just those directly impacted by the disaster - flooding into the Civic Ballroom. They would have left feeling more comfortable in a decidedly uncomfortable Summer of despair.
There were words of encouragement in dire times packaged in the guidelines of support organisations from government to community support groups, including input by a representative of LINC who said an anonymous donor in Sydney had sent a truck load of support items to Lithgow.
The over riding message was 'you're not alone in this'
Council's stated priorities were understandably making safe our rural roads lined by burnt 'widowmaker' trees and clearing the deceptively deadly unseen fires ignited in coal chitter deposits.
It was a good start in the long road back to normality, whatever that is these days.
Raining mud
TALK about Biblical quality pestilence.
We've had it all - well, a goodly share of it anyway. For weeks we've had all invasive smoke, soot and ash and lurking in the polluted atmosphere another less obvious intrusion. When some light rain emerged over Lithgow early Saturday it literally rained droplets of mud again, leaving ugly stains over everything. It was of course a legacy of the lingering dust but it's going to take a lot of the rain promised for this week to give the place a good wash down.
A sad picture of neglect
LAST week's item about the ugly weed growth around our towns and along the highway median strips all the way through urban Bowenfels attracted quite a deal of feedback. Some seemed to recall it was not that long ago that Paul Toole announced a new RMS contract to maintain the medians... but..! Nothing new in this unsightly mess of course but it's certainly not the image we should be portraying.
Bad timing
IT wasn't a good Christmas for some of our district workforce with around 30, we're told, operators engaged on a short term contract at Thales Lithgow Arms (the SAF to most oldies) finishing up during Christmas week. This was not a happy way to end 2019.
A project set in stone
IT would be nice to find out just what's involved in the current work on the heritage listed sandstone railway viaduct in Lithgow's James Street.
The oldest railway viaduct west of the Mountains was closed to road traffic for several weeks late last year and is now closed again to the end of March and again clad in scaffolding. It's got a lot of people intrigued.
