On St Patrick's Day last year, a half-rotten, termite-infested wooden power pole snapped in the shrieking wind and fell over on Jack Kenna's dairy farm at The Sisters about 9pm.
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It sparked a bushfire which screamed south in the night of March 17, resulting in the destruction of 18 homes and 45 sheds.
Stunningly, there were no fatalities or serious injuries.
Jill Porter and her husband Brad live next door to Jack and Betty Kenna. Better people than that quartet you cannot find.
On that night in 2018, the fire jumped the road and headed through the Porter farm, burning 400 hectares and destroying 300 stud Jersey cows.
But, for Jill Porter the fight to recover from the fire has turned to anger. Anger that she and her neighbours, her community were burnt out due to energy giant Powercor's shamefully inadequate electricity infrastructure maintenance program. Anger that the state government's body to oversee the energy industry is a toothless tiger. And beyond all else, anger that a rotten pole was allowed to remain in place that then caused such a devastating bushfire, despite being checked and cleared by Powercor only a couple of months before the blaze.
Mrs Porter has led a David v. Goliath battle against corporate giants, impervious government agencies, political machines, class action lawyers and insurance companies.
While she reluctantly admits to being 50 years old this year, she says as a birthday present she never wants to see or hear from Powercor again.
But, she points out for that to happen the energy behemoth needs to start being responsible for its distribution network - and she adds they clearly are not.
"I want them to be a decent corporate company. To own their mess, fix it and ensure that everyone in the south-west is safe," she said.
"Every day when I got to the dairy yard and see it's half empty, I see the impact of that fire. I know there's a better way to look at it, that the yard is half full, but it's tough.
"That yard is my husband's life passion, my marriage, I can't articulate that impact. Physically there's recovery, farm fences, but in terms of breeding we're still at the starting line.
"It takes a long time to build, it takes a long time to rebuild."
Mrs Porter said the fire caused a rethink after 23 years of dairy farming.
"You are forced to stop, step back and objectively assess what you want and don't want. We certainly did and continue to do so. There are positives, it's not all negative," she said.
"It took several months to come out of the fog (after the fire). You don't sleep. Life is not normal. I still don't work as a pharmacist.
Most of the anger has dissipated. It's now frustration and disappointment that a community is being treated like this by a network distribution businesses (Powercor) and the state government.
- Jill Porter
"Initially, I couldn't go to work. I was needed by Brad and our business. Then the kids started to recover, but I still don't know if my head space is right.
"The fire knocked me around. In my job, if I make a mistake I could harm people."
After the fire it took months for Mrs Porter to turn her mind to what was next - that involved seeking compensation for losses caused by a failing Powercor asset.
"We were being forced to beg for compensation, having to pay to obtain damages caused by no fault of our own," Mrs Porter said
"I spent time reading, contacting and seeing people about the best choices for my family. I had some direct discussions with Powercor chief executive Tim Rourke and general manager of network Steven Neave.
"Initially I went along with it, but I soon realised we were not being treated decently.
"At that point I got angry."
Mrs Porter had discussions with lawyers and brokered the first-ever no costs insurance payout deal, bypassing what has previously been the heavily litigated class action industry that makes lawyers millions of dollars.
"Most of the anger has dissipated. It's now frustration and disappointment that a community is being treated like this by a network distribution businesses (Powercor) and the state government," she said.
"We have been let down by the independent safety regulator (Energy Safe Victoria). Why are they not advocating for me? Powercor is being allowed to continue its propaganda that everything is being done that needs to be done and done well.
"Naively, I believed there would be base requirements. That perspective has changed."
After finding a see-through power pole, Mrs Porter contracted an independent firm in November to conduct checks on her Sparrow Spur line power poles.
The results were stunning. The poles were "degraded".
"It was not surprising. Visually they looked poor. The report categorically tells you the state of those poles," she said.
"The Powercor response on the Monday was to assure us about the integrity of the poles and saying they were coming for a visit. By Wednesday they were not coming and on the Sunday eight poles were replaced.
"There was a lack of respect in that short process."
Mrs Porter said she reared her children to look for the good in people, that people were generally trustworthy, but now she has a different view dealing with "corporate people".
She continues to force change, change that is redefining compensation structures and also bringing Powercor, ESV and the state government to heel.
Eight poles were replaced at The Sisters, another eight near Simon Craven's farm near Ecklin and 19,000 poles around the south-west are being checked.
There's now a lot of white crosses signifying degraded poles.
"I see a lot of Powercor trucks. So there should be," Mrs Porter said.
"If poles are not adequate they should be replaced. Most people in Powercor have a strong technical background of electrical engineering and that's just about what sits on the top of wooden power poles.
"There's an awful lot of power poles in this region 80-plus years old. It was identified as an issue in the Black Saturday Royal Commission 10 years ago.
"In 2017 only 1153 of Powercor's 640,000 power poles were replaced. That's a sliver of one per cent."
Mrs Porter said Powercor needed to "own" that its assets were ageing and put in place a sustainable maintenance and replacement program.
"This is important for my community. We have to look forward because if we just look backward you would sit in the corner and cry," she said.
"We can't let a bushfire define us. It's been hard. We want to make sure that it doesn't happen again.
"I had no idea about the impact of Black Saturday and all those people who died. No-one died here. We (bushfire victims) have a social obligation.
"To do nothing would be unforgivable. Unless we get this right there will be a next time.
"That's what's frightening."
Mrs Porter knows she's neck deep in a battle with Powercor, ESV and the state government. Premier Daniel Andrews and his ministers refuse to meet with her.
"I know I am obsessed. I'm an all-or-nothing person," she said.
"I look forward to the day when my daughter comes home from uni and doesn't have to say 'can we have a Powercor-free night'. I look forward to that day, but we're nowhere near there yet.
"I've met some good people out of this, really good. No matter how long Brad and I live, or how many lifetimes, we could never repay the generosity that has been shown to us.
"But, we don't want anyone else to have to go through this."
