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Yearly Archives: 2013
Historical Disaster Inquires in Australia
In a previous post, I’ve attempted to catalogue all the disaster related inquiries in Australia since the year 2000. In the course of collecting that list I naturally came across a range of lists and other information on disaster inquiries and commissions that pre-date that. I’m collating that information in this post.
Update on the Climate Change and Emergency Preparedness Senate Inquiry
Over 150 submissions have been received for the Recent trends in and preparedness for extreme weather events and they’re still coming. No doubt the recent bushfires and floods have intensified interest in the inquiry. I have doubts that the inquiry will be able to report by its current deadline of 20 March. Likewise I suspect that more hearings might be added to the three that have been currently announced.
Raising Warragamba Dam could lead to a greater catastrophe
This post originally appeared in New Matilda under the title “Floodwaters Could Rise In Sydney”
Queensland and NSW are again recovering from record breaking floods and again many are questioning the state of flood mitigation in Australia. While attention remains on flood affected parts of Queensland attention is starting to turn to what could be the worst flood risk in the country: the Hawkesbury-Nepean River in Western Sydney.
Tsunami Warnings and Getting it wrong
This morning a large earthquake hit the Solomon Islands and generated a tsunami.
The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center was quick to respond with a watch/warning advisory issued within 6 minutes. Australia was one of the countries included in the watch area. The Australian Tsunami Warning Centre (which is jointly run by the Bureau of Meteorology and Geoscience Australia) issued its own advice that there was ‘No Threat’ to Australia.
This didn’t stop many Australian media outlets from mentioning the PTWC advisory in their coverage of the earthquake/tsunami.
Factcheck: More properties inundated in 2011 floods?
It’s been an oft repeated statement that more properties were flooded in the 2011 Brisbane floods than in 1974 despite the flood peak being a metre lower. As part of something I’m working on I decided to look further into it.
Climate Change, Extreme Weather and Emergency Preparedness Senate Inquiry: Part 6
In this final instalment of my series on the Recent trends in and preparedness for extreme weather events Inquiry I’ll address the remaining terms of reference in a roundabout way. See Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 and Part 5 here. The remaining terms deal with Australia’s overall response to climate change adaptation and national coordination of risk management. I want to address the impact of climate change on severe weather events being far from the only climate impact relevant to emergency management; climate change adaptation being far from the only emerging challenge in emergency management; and the interconnectedness of many current and emerging threats for Australia and the world.
(f) progress in developing effective national coordination of climate change response and risk management, including legislative and regulatory reform, standards and codes, taxation arrangements and economic instruments;
(g) any gaps in Australia’s Climate Change Adaptation Framework and the steps required for effective national coordination of climate change response and risk management; and
(h) any related matter.
Climate Change, Extreme Weather and Emergency Preparedness Senate Inquiry: Part 5
Further submissions have come in in the past week or so and I move onto the fifth instalment in my series on the extreme weather trends and emergency preparedness senate inquiry. See part 1, part 2, part 3 and part 4. This term of reference relates to federalism and emergency management:
(e) the current roles and effectiveness of the division of responsibilities between different levels of government (federal, state and local) to manage extreme weather events;
The division of emergency management responsibilities is a product of Australia’s history of federalism. I’m going to try and restrict this discussion to just responsibilities and ignore the role money has to play in federalism and emergency management through vertical fiscal imbalance and horizontal fiscal inequity.
Disasters in Australia – not a new normal, just normal
The recent spate of large natural disasters in Australia has a lot of people asking whether we are in some sort of “new normal” of regular catastrophic disasters. I believe such comments demonstrate a lack of sense of history – disasters, even catastrophic disasters, are a regular feature of the Australian landscape. Disasters ARE normal, there’s nothing new about it.
I thought I’d take a look at another 10 year period to demonstrate; I’ve picked the 1930s. Here’s a brief summary of significant disasters in that decade:
- 1930 – Widespread flooding in Queensland – 6 deaths
- 1932 – Bushfire in Gippsland – 9 deaths
- 1934 – Cyclone in North Queensland – 99 deaths
- 1934 – Flooding in Melbourne and Victoria – 35 deaths and 400 homes destroyed
- 1935 – Cyclone in Broome WA – 141 deaths and pearling fleet destroyed
- 1938/39 – Heatwave, 438 deaths, and the Black Friday bushfires with 71 deaths in Victoria, 6 in NSW and 1000 homes destroyed.
- 1939/40 – Heatwave 112 deaths
- 1940 – Burdekin Flood, Queensland – 3 deaths
Sources: Wikipedia and EM Knowledge Hub
NSW EM Updates and Fire Danger
As Tasmania continues to face terrible bush fires and NSW gears up for a day of catastrophic fire danger in many areas*, I noted two new developments in NSW emergency management:
- The new State Emergency Management Plan (EMPlan) has been published. Consistent with recent changes to the State Emergency and Rescue Management Act it expands the roles of functional areas and names agency responsibilities across PPRR. It’s also a much shorter document clocking it at 35 pages excluding annexes (79 with) versus 51 pages in the old DISPLAN (98 with annexes).
- A new guide: Government, you and what to do – A Guide to Natural Disasters in NSW, which contains comprehensive information about natural disasters in NSW; what individuals, families and businesses can do before, during, and after them; and what risk management activities the Government is undertaking. It also includes handy guides, checklists, social media links and other useful information.
For those in emergency management in NSW – good luck for tomorrow. Anyone wanting to find good information here’s a couple of recommendations:
- Head to the NSW RFS Website, Facebook Page or follow them on Twitter. You can also download the NSW version of the Firesnearme app for iPhone and Android.
- Tune in to ABC Radio (frequency list here) or follow @ABCemergency on Twitter.
- Don’t forget to look out the window.
And if you’re looking to help out with the Tasmanian Bush Fires Appeal go to the Red Cross website.
*Some media sources are pegging it as the worst fire danger day on record for the state. I’m not so sure. It will probably be the worst for at least 10-20 years, but I’m not sure it would eclipse the fire danger (although this was before the FFDI index was even invented) during the heatwave of 1939 (which set many of the individual temperature records in NSW).
Casus Calamitas 