The Queensland Floods Response in Ipswich

Brisbane.
The next speaker at ANZDMC is Paul Pisasale, the Mayor of Ipswich (which was also severely affected in the 2011 south-east Queensland floods, of course). Paul is currently in re-election mode, so he starts with a bit of a sales pitch for Ipswich.

He notes the problems of talking to the media during the crisis: while the disaster management team might have known what a prospective flood level of 18m meant, the media largely didn’t, and this had the potential of causing substantial stress for the community – so there needed to be clear communication strategies for getting the right message across. Also, decision-making needed to be team-based, rather than being driven by titles and positions.

Media and rubbernecking also disrupted the emergency response and cleanup process; so Paul and his team talked directly to the service unions in order to negotiate an unpaid shift to night-time work, when the streets were less blocked. The media, says Paul, always looked for the conflicts and disagreements, and this wasn’t helpful; the same happened with the Flood Commission of Inquiry, which was not optimally effective. It’s important “not to listen to the morons”, Paul says.

There’s a need for clear communication, then, and to be prepared even for the least likely events; few people expected an event of the magnitude of the January 2011 floods, for example. But no-one is ever fully prepared – and when events happen, it becomes important to balance between informing the community and creating a panic. And of course the question also is who decides, as well as how and when those decisions are made.