By KATH GANNAWAY
CASTING his mind back to the day he and other residents were allowed back into Marysville, Ray Mahoney recalls his first thoughts … “What happened?”.
It’s a question people all around Victoria asked five years ago as the horror of Black Saturday hit first with a numbing blow, then a crushing sadness as the loss of so many lives, livelihoods and homes was revealed.
There were also stories of courage, survival and generosity that gave hope.
Five years on, Mr Mahoney, whose post office business and home he shared with wife Carole was destroyed, speaks first of gratitude. Then of hope, and the future.
“I could not say in a million years how grateful we are to everyone who has come and supported us,” he said.
The new post office re-opened in December 2010, the first to completely rebuild and move back.
It hasn’t been easy – and there’s a way to go yet for the town to re-establish, but Like many in Marysville, Mr Mahoney is pinning hopes on the new hotel/conference centre that is under way.
He says he is confident it’s the thing that will kick the town back into some sort of normality.
“It will be one of the only things built here that is going to benefit the locals and visitors,” he said. “Everything else has been either for one or the other.”
Rebuilding is slow and properties are not selling quickly, but he says that has to be seen in the context of jobs, which is where the new hotel could play a role.
Perhaps a dozen new families have moved in, mostly of retirement age, but some young families too, he said.
The population is creeping up too, he thinks around the 220 mark, over one third of what it was. That’s a positive.
It’s not the only one. Marysville is different now, but it has a lot to offer.
“There is nothing here that I wish wasn’t here,” Mr Mahoney said of the reconstruction that has delivered a new school, community centre, police station, parks, playgrounds, walking tracks and other infrastructure.
It’s been a team effort to rebuild the town, he said.
Mr Mahoney paid tribute to the Council who he says did their part, the people who came up and supported the town, those who stayed and rebuilt and those who returned to rebuild.
“Sure, some things could have been done differently – you’re never going to please everybody,” he said.
“But if you were to sit everyone down and ask what they think, I don’t think there’s anyone up here who would be ungrateful.
“When something happens you can ask for help, and if you’re given help, there’s not much more you can say but ‘thank you’.”
While Black Saturday put Marysville on the world map, Ray says it has also given the Marysville community a global perspective.
“I don’t know anyone who went through this up here and came out the other side who isn’t a better person, more understanding of other things that happen in the world,” he said,
“You can relate to these people now, standing there with nothing in a disaster, and think maybe they need some help. That’s something good that has come of this.”
