Ferntree Gully Belgrave
Power outages cause havoc in the hills
Cockatoo family home destroyed by generator fire
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Tuesday, 9 November, 2021
Mail Belgrave’s community garden to be transformed
Melbourne Cup winner souvenir poster
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INSIDE
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A lucky escape By Mikayla van Loon
Willow Swaneveld’s life was saved by the refrigerator as a tree fell on her home on Friday 29 October. 256628 the only way she could describe that morning was surreal. “If you would have walked through the house and had a look at how everything was laid out, you would be baffled by how I’m sit-
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But once more the community has stepped in, led by Adrian Whitling, to raise funds to help give the family somewhere to live for the next 12 months while the house is built. Continued page 3
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ting here talking to you right now.” Although the insurance company has paid to house Willow, her mum and her brother for three weeks, after that they have nowhere else to go where they can be together.
Picture: STEWART CHAMBERS
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It’s 6am. You’ve just rolled over to turn your alarm off and as you go to put your head back on the pillow, the unthinkable happens. The sound of a crack echoes through your ears and before you know it a tree falls through your bedroom, a metre or two more and it would be crushing you. That is what Willow Swaneveld woke up to on Friday 29 October as more storms battered the Hills area. “I jumped up and I looked out the window. When I saw the carnage that just occurred, my first thought was, I just lost both my parents this year. There’s no way my mum survived that,” she said. “And then all of a sudden I got a phone call and her name popped up on my phone and I’ve never felt the feeling of relief that I did.” Willow’s dad Jamin Swaneveld died earlier this year when his motorbike collided with a turning vehicle. The news of the death of the beloved tattoo artist sent shockwaves throughout the community and saw everyone rally behind his family in a time of grief. Now Willow’s family home in Cockatoo, which was pretty much built by her dad, has been completely decimated by the tree and will most likely have to be rebuilt. The only room to survive was the tattoo studio holding Jamin’s ashes. “It’s hard because we were just kind of settling down and accepting the fact that [dad was gone] and trying to rebuild as a family,” she said. “Now not only do we have to rebuild our family but we’ve got to rebuild our home.” Still unsure how she survived, Willow said