This is going a be a long thread, its basically my whole night and into the next day during the evacuation. You've all probably heard the stories of people and groups going up to help, and they did. My 3 friends and I were the first group to head up there.
Not saying that for bragging rights, just stating the facts.
We hit Highway 63 around 8 or 9 p.m. (it was already getting dark). The highway was basically a ghost town until about mile marker 95 — that’s when we started seeing the southbound traffic.
The police had the northbound lanes shut down at Grassland, but they let us through after we told them what we were doing. The scariest moment was around Mariana Lake: we suddenly hit southbound traffic driving in the northbound lanes without warning. We had to swerve into
the ditch to avoid collisions.We started seeing the glow of the fire around mile marker 200. The police wouldn’t let us go any farther than Airport Road. That was around 7 a.m. on May 4 — they turned us around there. We drove back to Anzac, topped up our jerry cans and water
jugs, and headed south again, filling up everyone we could.We posted our phone numbers on social media and told friends to share them, saying we were bringing fuel and water. The phones started ringing nonstop — every time I answered a call, I’d miss four more. My phone
didn’t stop ringing for about 16 hours straight.When people called, we’d ask for their nearest mile marker. If they couldn’t give one, we told them to pull over, put their hood up, and turn on their 4-way flashers so we could spot them from a distance.We split up for only about
an hour at one point. One of us got stuck trying to cross the median. We went back, pulled him out, and decided to stick together after that.The whole night is mostly a blur now. One thing that stands out is that a certain demographic was being extremely greedy — they wanted to
aake as much fuel as they could and would get irate when we said no. Because of that, we started visually checking people’s fuel levels before giving any. If they still had enough to make it to the next fuel stop, we’d refuse fuel but offer water and move on to the next person
who really needed it.When we finally got off the highway the next day, all I remember feeling was extreme exhaustion.Afterward, a few people reached out to say thanks. I still keep in touch with the two friends who were with me that night. One family I don’t even remember helping
actually tracked me down and gave me a custom-made hard hat as a thank-you. That meant a lot.
@threadreaderapp unroll please
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