Disaster Management Strategies in Queensland

This assignment provides an analysis of disaster management strategies in Queensland, focusing on the 2011 floods. It discusses the implementation of plans by government and state authorities to mitigate risk, as well as the provision of emergency services such as medical, transport, food, and fire. The assignment also touches on information security incident response teams providing support during incidents.

QUEENSLAND FLOODS IN
2011

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
OVERVIEW OF THE CAUSATIVE FACTORS THAT LEAD TO THE DISASTER................1
ACUTE MEDICAL EMERGENCIES PRESENTED DURING THE DISASTER.......................2
CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE AND USE OF APPROPRIATE INCIDENT
MANAGEMENT GUIDELINES....................................................................................................2
DISASTER MANAGEMENT TOOL TO MAKE RECOMMENDATIONS TO IMPROVE
EMERGENCY RESPONSES.........................................................................................................6
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION
Queensland floods 2011 was one of the most effective series of floods which had a major
impact on Queensland, Australia that number of people, infrastructure, property were affected
from this. The flood was caused due to heavy rainfall across the area by a storm surge as a result
of high tide. Floods have heavy consequences for communities and individuals including
damages to property, infrastructure, loss of human life and livestock, destruction of crops and
deterioration of health conditions.
The report is based on this incident happened in November 2010. This will cover
overview of causative factors and actual medical emergencies presented during the disaster. In
addition to this, the report will also provide contemporary literature and use of appropriate
incident management guidelines along with disaster management tools to make
recommendations to improve emergency responses.
OVERVIEW OF THE CAUSATIVE FACTORS THAT LEAD TO THE
DISASTER
Queensland, Australia was affected by a series of floods in the beginning of November
2010. Floods forced the evacuation of thousands of people from town to city. There were almost
200,000 people and 90 towns affected. An estimate damage was calculated around $1 billion and
it was raised to $2.38 billion. It was caused by heavy rain from tropical cyclone 'Tasha' that
joined with a La Niña event (Walters, Mair & Ritchie, 2015). It is a pattern which brings wet
weather to eastern Australia. This had a major impact in terms of heavy rainfall across
Queensland. The rainfall level was 404.7 mm and also it was much bigger than the old record of
369 mm which was in 1975 effectively.
Flood can be defined as a run-off of water that overwhelm land is usually dry. The EU
(European Union) floods directive describes flooding that it is covered by water of land and not
usually covered by water. The word Flowing water can be also applied to the inflow of tide.
Some of the most common factors that causes flooding includes both natural and human
activities such as heavy rains, overflowing rivers, broken dams, a lack of vegetation, melting of
ice and snow, urban drainage basins, channels with steep sides and tsunamis and storm surges. It
was one of the major and recorded wettest year for Australia. There were almost 300 roads
closed due to this including nine major main highways. Many places including Chinchilla,
Condamine were flooded different times. The prices of fruits and vegetables were also raised
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because crops have been demolished. The major flooding occurred on 13th January 2011 in most
of the Brisbane River catchment and severely in Lockyer creek and Toowoomba where almost
23 people drowned.
ACUTE MEDICAL EMERGENCIES PRESENTED DURING THE
DISASTER
The extreme weather caused flooding in Queensland which caused damage of billion
dollars including public infrastructure and health issues. During this phase, a comprehensive
public health provided response to address various key factors and elements of food safety, water
quality, vector control, water disposal, vaccine preventable diseases along with the public
information during the procedure of recovery effectively. The surveillance towards disease was
based on attendance from emergency department, notifications and evacuation centre reports.
Hospitality presentations increased during this phase with cellulitis (Yu, Zhang & Lemckert,
2014). On the other hand, local government was also responsible for managing disasters in order
to provide support to the state and district disaster management committees and groups. The
response included coordination between councils, emergency services, police and government
department under management of local council operating for disaster management group.
Expertise and trained staff along with available resources were managed by the
government in order to deliver emergency services to people affected. Councils were also well
prepared as well as equipped in order to handle this event during the floods. However, there were
not enough resources to deal with the size of this event but it received assistance from Gold
Coast City Council. Medical, food, hospital, helicopter and other services were provided in areas
which were highly affected. On the other hand, government of Australia was also making
emergency strategies and plans in order to mitigate the risks associated with this event. Local
committees and councils were engaged in delivering their own services to people who were
highly affected with this event. Both were providing emergency services during this critical
phase.
CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE AND USE OF APPROPRIATE
INCIDENT MANAGEMENT GUIDELINES
The information security management guidelines are developed in order to help
department to meet incident management needs and information security event under the
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information security policy. Operational areas and departmental staff are involved in incident
management towards information security (Gorman-Murray, McKinnon & Dominey-Howes,
2016). The guidelines are developed so that departments are able to implement management
policies regarding incidents in order to ensure a systematic and planned approach to handle
incidents such as Queensland. The state based emergency response such as police, ambulance,
fire and SES were active in order to control, command, triage, communicate, transport and
treatment of the incidents effectively. In addition to this, response plans and mitigation strategies
were developed to manage disasters. Information policies, plans and supporting techniques along
with training measures were also identified in order to prevent the similar incidents. One of the
most important benefits of this is that it helps to provide guidelines to state emergency response
departments to develop their information system and incident management policies. The
departments' overview the key factors and phases associated with event to manage and control
them first. This helps to make appropriate actions and strategies to assist the requirements.
It can be said that Queensland event was a major disaster for Australia that district and
local disaster management committees and groups played a vital role in responding and
managing disaster to support people. In addition to this, preparedness, prevention, response and
recovery disaster management guidelines has been also deployed to provide guidance to district,
local and state disaster management stakeholders along with obligations, functions and
legislative requirements. The guidelines outline a comprehensive process for each step to be
undertaken in order to manage every phase of disaster. It is prepared specifically to address
responsibilities and roles of disaster management prevention, stakeholders and strategies related
to mitigation along with consideration for planning. The guidelines increased suite of toolkit to
ensure support in the management and planning towards disaster management requirements
(McMahon & Kiem, 2016). The continuous improvement spirit and guidelines will be updated in
order to reflect changing requirements of stakeholders and also collaborative nature of disaster
management of Queensland. During this event, Queensland emergency services were tasked to
create resilient and safe departments and communities to minimise the consequences and impact
of this event on property, people, economy and environment of Queensland. In order to
accomplish this shared outcome for state, QFES worked side by side with partners and
stakeholders. Queensland state based emergency services and response provided a lot of
supportive services during this event in terms of fire, ambulance and transport. The goal of
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information security incident response team was to provide capability to departments to assess
and respond security incidents and events. The members of ISIRT includes IT managers, security
officers, operational activities, human resource management including, legal, media and external
extensions.
The comprehensive approach towards disaster management consists of four phases such
as preparedness, prevention, response, recovery and capabilities. These are capable of ensuring a
balance between reducing the risk and enhancement of group resilience for effective and
efficient recovery, response and other capabilities. In addition to this, Queensland disaster
management arrangements were divided into 22 districts in which each of them comprising one
or more LGAs. During the flooding phase in Queensland, Australia arrangements were
characterised and implemented with help of a strong partnership between cooperation owned by
government and the governance itself (State of Queensland, 2018). On the other hand, local
communities, NGOs and industry sectors were also involved in providing emergency services to
people. Further, resources, information, risk planning and services related to disaster
management were also provided in order to ensure effective coordination. Disaster management
system in Queensland consist of four system and three government levels such as state, local and
federal. In addition to this, an additional state governance between state and local level is also
known as disaster district. These are effective enough to manage and control operational services
in order to provide support to local communities and groups that helps to address complexities
and diversity of Queensland effectively.
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The organisation structures such as disaster management group, coordination centres,
plans, functional lead agencies, specific purpose committees and hazard specific authority helped
to achieve effective disaster management within Queensland. The local government is
responsible for developing and implementing disaster management plan in order to manage
disasters such as Flooding at community level. On the other hand, training framework, functions
of disaster management groups and their responsibilities plays a vital role in managing and
controlling situations that can cause big losses similar to Flooding (Haworth & Bruce, 2015). It
can be said that state based emergency responses were also provided during this critical phase
including police, fire and ambulance services in order to deliver treatment, transport, command
and controlling services to people suffered from this event.
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Illustration 1: Disaster management arrangements in Queensland
(Source: State of Queensland, 2018)

DISASTER MANAGEMENT TOOL TO MAKE RECOMMENDATIONS
TO IMPROVE EMERGENCY RESPONSES
Disaster management cycle tool
The disaster management tool can be described as a software system that helps to support
decisions, surveillance and intervention terms during response of disaster effectively. This helps
to support decision system to coordinate and allocate the limited response resource in order to
increase overall efficiency. The tool could be used to improve emergency responses such as in
management of disasters.
Councils are able to encourage and support business owners in order to develop private
flood evacuation strategies with the help of delivering information about benefits of these plans
and providing details about relevant emergency services. This will be in areas that are known to
be affected by such events effectively.
Councils are also able to involve implementation of measures in order to prevent future
disasters to minimise the damage and effects of threats (Whitton, 2018). This includes analysis of
hazards and risks and application of plans. Public plans and policies could be also modified to
mitigate the effect of disasters on local public.
In case the government is not able to manage and control response towards disasters then
local governance is appointed to assist issues that they will provide support to management and
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Illustration 2: Disaster management cycle tool
(Source: Wajong, 2017)

groups who are working to provide emergency services to people. Adopting uniform disaster
management software is also an option that it will help to enable inter-council to provide better
assistance effectively. In addition to this, C2C program should be also incorporated to operate
within coordination centre of state disaster. The local government should prepare plans and
strategies in advance in order to help individuals to respond or recover (Wajong, 2017). On the
other hand, satisfaction level of readiness also should be achieved to respond any kind of
emergency situations.
It is recommended that Australian and state government could manage such events
through actions that could be followed in an emergency case to save lives and property damages.
The recovery includes, restoring, reshaping and rebuilding that area which is impacted by
disaster effectively. There are opportunities during the process of recovery that helps to recover
and improve prevention and enhancing preparedness.
CONCLUSION
It is concluded from the above report that Queensland floods in 2011 was one of the most
effective disaster which affected many people, property and infrastructure. It was caused by
heavy rainfall across Queensland. There are multiple ways in which it could happen and the
most common is known as river overflows. It is analysed that government and state local
authorities, committees and groups implemented a lot of strategies and plans in order to mitigate
this risk. Number of plans, emergency services such as medical, transport, food and fire are
provided to people living in the most affected areas. On the other hand, information security
incident response team also provided strength to departments in terms of extra services that are
needed to assess and respond incident.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals:
Walters, G., Mair, J., & Ritchie, B. (2015). Understanding the tourist’s response to natural
disasters: The case of the 2011 Queensland floods. Journal of Vacation Marketing 21(1)
101-113.
Yu, Y., Zhang, H., & Lemckert, C. (2014). Numerical analysis on the Brisbane River plume in
Moreton Bay due to Queensland floods 2010–2011. Environmental Fluid
Mechanics 14(1) 1-24.
Gorman-Murray, A. W., McKinnon, S. J., & Dominey-Howes, D. (2016). Masculinity, sexuality
and disaster: unpacking gendered LGBT experiences in the 2011 Brisbane floods in
Queensland, Australia.
McMahon, G., & Kiem, A. S. (2016). Major floods-random or irregular. In 37th Hydrology &
Water Resources Symposium 2016: Water, Infrastructure and the Environment (p. 319).
Engineers Australia.
Haworth, B., & Bruce, E. (2015). A review of volunteered geographic information for disaster
management. Geography Compass 9(5) 237-250.
Whitton, S. (2018). Social recovery for the elderly: learnings from south-west
Queensland. Australian Journal of Emergency Management, The 33(1) 16.
Online:
State of Queensland, 2018. Disaster management arrangements in Queensland. [Online].
Available through:
<https://www.disaster.qld.gov.au/dmg/Pages/DM-Guideline.aspx>
Wajong, 2017. Disaster management cycle tool. [Online]. Available through:
<https://www.quora.com/What-is-disaster-management-cycle>
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