An almost total stillness followed for days after a terrifying storm devastated areas close to Sheffield, Tasmania last month.
"It was incredibly still like it had just totally exhausted itself," said Kristen Lang, a poet who lives on the lower slopes of Mount Roland.
That kind of psychological impact of a traumatic storm event is what inspired Greg Taylor and his Mount Roland Rivercare group to organise a community get-together with poetry, music and sharing stories at the Claude Road Hall.
"The physical damage is something people will always think about but the emotional trauma is harder to talk about," said Mr Taylor during the afternoon tea break outside the hall.
"I visited people just after the storm and they were, literally, walking around in small circles.
A friendly mountain turns ugly
The Claude Road Hall is right at the base of Mount Roland — a friendly loaf of a mountain viewed as totemic for Sheffield and the North West region.
For at least 12 hours, from June 11 into June 12, it was near enough the epicentre of a violent, terrifying storm that flattened whole swathes of old-growth trees and damaged farms and homes.
In nearby Beulah, 54-year-old Jacinta Vanderfeen was killed and her partner Ken was seriously injured when a tree fell near their home.
The storm was erratic, missing one place, trashing the next and it was felt from Gunns Plains to Biralee, Kimberley to Penguin. Powerlines were torn down, roofs came off houses and at one point, 20,000 people were without power.
The incredible number of huge trees that came down was not something that many Tasmanians had seen before — if ever.
Reflections on a storm
The coming together at Claude Road Hall, an event tagged Reflections on a Storm, featured poetry by Ms Lange, didgeridoo-playing by Ron Nagorcka and some poignant songs.
Musician Anisha Luyten sang Michael Jackson's Earth Song, inspired by her own concern that there has not been enough action on climate change.
That lifelong concern is now compounded by her own frightening experience of the storm, which devastated her family's property on a flank of Mount Roland.
"It was so hectic! We lost part of our roof," said the 19-year-old singer who has been studying at the Tasmanian Conservatorium of Music.
"My father and I have been working as many weekends as we can to just clear trees, get back to our waterways. It's going to take years."
A poet responds. To whatever comes
A working poet caught in a terrifying storm is still a working poet. For Ms Lang, writing is therapy. It's a way to process and make sense of chaos. And she's still writing about the storm:
"The lawn tonight has gathered pademelons. Who knows from where. They cross the buckled ground. Trees leaning into other trees, vertical roots baring their boulders to the miraculous stars," she wrote.
Another common experience of the storm and shared by Ms Lang, was that the wind was roaring so loudly that no-one heard even the biggest trees fall.
"Getting up in the morning was something of a shock," she said.
"And five weeks later it's still shocking to me. Every trail I love is blocked and changed.
"Even the light has changed on our property — the canopy was just blown away."
When Mr Taylor looked out after a full night of intense wind that sounded like a "jet engine", he found 50 to 70 trees down on his own small property.
"It was amazing that you couldn't hear them fall," he said.
"You just listen and wonder and hope you keep your four walls. I'm not sure what would happen, what you could do, if you lost those."
Volunteers arrive to hurricane-like damage
The Reflections on a Storm event was aimed at debriefing and healing a traumatised community.
It also served as a community welcome to the volunteer group, Disaster Relief Australia, which has been there to boost spirits by helping with the daunting physical clean-up.
"We're here for three weeks to do a lot of chainsaw work," said Chris Perrin, the national deputy director of capability with Disaster Relief Australia.
"We'll be on stretcher beds in the hall here and community groups are helping to feed us.
"It's a really significant number of trees and a lot of very big trees.
"We're seeing trees that are snapped off 20 feet (6 metres) from the ground — hundreds of years old and this is the first time a wind's been able to do that to them."
