Residents fear fire disaster
SANDY Point residents fear power outages, patchy mobile service and poor internet connections could lead to a disaster this bushfire season.
Locals Doug and Liz Brown, Joyce Wright and Wendy Johnson met with The Star to voice their concerns about the potential for tragedy.
The beachside hamlet, they say, is mainly made up of retirees, for whom reliable communications is of critical, if not lifesaving, importance.
Dunes and hills all play a part in blocking the mobile signal, but the placement of the Telstra tower is another impediment, Mrs Johnson said.
Constructed in 2016, the tower is about one kilometre outside town.
“The tower was supposed to have solved the problem, but instead of Telstra acquiring land and putting the tower in a more appropriate place, they put it on the land they already owned – which really didn’t help us a great deal,” she said.
Mr Brown said the holiday period was comical for the sight of visitors wandering the roads with their phones held high, desperately searching for a signal.
“The trouble is if there’s ever a bushfire, there’s only one way in and one way out of the place. We can go to the beach, if we’re lucky enough to get to the beach,” he said.
“If there’s a disaster we’re in trouble. It plays on my mind in the summer.”
Survivors of the Black Saturday fires of 2009, Mr and Mrs Brown understand the dangers better than most.
The Sandy Point Community Group has been actively campaigning for better mobile coverage for years.
About six months after the tower was constructed, community group member Phil Cornwell tested 51 sites around the town, rating only two as ‘good’ and five as ‘fair’ for mobile reception. Twenty-one were judged ‘bad’ and 23 ‘poor’.
Despite the complaints, Telstra’s Loretta Willaton said things had improved markedly in the town.
“Since 2016, Sandy Point locals have benefited from a Telstra mobile black spot site which has improved coverage and increased capacity – especially during the busy holiday periods,” she said.
She said a small cell at the eastern part of Sandy Point will be switched on early this year, further improving coverage.
An NBN spokesperson assured The Star its service to the town would get better, following upgrades to the NBN Fixed Wireless network and improvements to the “Fibre Backhaul”.
Sandy Point residents remain sceptical.
The Federal Government’s spending across Australia on mobile black spots has totalled $380 million, with $3.3 million spent in the South Gippsland and Bass Coast shires.
Monash MP Russell Broadbent said his government “considers issues related to emergency communications very seriously, and appreciates the benefits of having mobile coverage in the event of bushfires and other emergencies”.
“This is why the government is committed to the Mobile Black Spot Program in regional areas,” he said.
He said it was “strongly recommended that as part of effective emergency preparation and planning, people do not rely on a single form of communication or source of information”.
Short URL: /?p=30628
Posted by 
