REC324-4312 |
17 - Assets and technology
17 - Assets and technology
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Impact to essential services: That, to minimise disruption to essential services, including outages which compromise basic communication coverage, and to ensure access to safe water supply and power during flood events, Government work directly or together with the Australian and other state governments and/or their relevant power and telecommunications regulatory, policy and market bodies to:
• ensure there are sufficient redundancy options known and made available (for example, backup diesel generators, deployed temporary telecommunications facilities, etc.) to supply power to essential telecommunication infrastructure, alternative telecommunications infrastructure and water treatment facilities.
• ensure that the telecommunication entities, electricity network providers and water treatment managers are using up to the minute, whole of catchment models to inform business continuity planning in the event of flooding
• facilitate cross carrier roaming arrangements between carriers and the public for basic text, voice and data during the period of emergency in areas directly affected by flood
• ensure all essential services are mandatory members of the Emergency Management Committees at state, regional and local levels
• ensure the state understands essential services redundancies and what emergency redundancy options are available from Australian Government agencies
• ensure, given the heavy reliance on essential services by community and government during a disaster, essential services loss, redundancy and build back better principles are exercised through emergency management committee processes annually.
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REC324-4293 |
17 - Assets and technology
17 - Assets and technology
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Essential services and floodplain infrastructure: That, to minimise disruption to essential services (power, communications, water, sewerage) and to ensure flood infrastructure is fully serviceable before flooding, Government ensure:
• essential services infrastructure (communications, water, power and sewerage) is situated as much as possible above the flood planning level. And to minimise disruption to medical services, aged care services and the police, Government ensure hospitals, medical centres, nursing homes, aged care facilities and police stations are situated above the probable maximum flood level
• floodplain infrastructure (drains, levees, flood gates) items are all assigned to an appropriate lead agency which has responsibility for ensuring they are fully maintained and functioning especially when floods are likely.
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REC324-4303 |
39 - Disaster Risk Management
39 - Disaster Risk Management
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Risk-based approach to calculating flood planning: That, to take account of greater knowledge of climate change, Government reinforce its adoption of a risk-based approach to calculating the flood planning level for planning purposes and, through the NSWRA, immediately start a process of revising all flood planning level calculations in the state’s high-risk catchments. Flood planning level re-determinations for all high-risk catchments should be completed within 3 years. These revised flood planning levels will need to be factored into all development applications (in-progress and new) in those high-risk catchments. The risk profile of high-risk catchments should be revisited at appropriate time intervals to check that levels are current. A review should take place if there has been a significant trigger event (i.e. changed rainfall, development) or at least every 5 years. As well as reviewing the flood planning level, this 5-yearly review should include reviewing any floodplain lease conditions and adjusting them as necessary in the light of better knowledge of climate change impacts. In working out a tolerable, risk-based flood planning level, consideration should be given to the PMF, 1% AEP, 0.02% AEP, existing development, approved but not yet constructed developments, and existing and approved but not yet constructed evacuation routes.
In coordinating this flood planning level re-determination process, NSWRA should work closely with local councils, DPE, communities, state water authorities and state and national engineering and research organisations. In doing so, the NSWRA should also:
• extend and then maintain the DPE state-wide flood database and associated visualisation interface. This database, which should link to LandiQ, would support:
— monitoring of the flood warning and sensing environment
— monitoring of trends in rainfall activity and impacts, including timing, cause, extent and intensity
— tracking trends and identifying patterns in associated weather and climate signals that contribute to severe floods
— evaluation of the cost and effectiveness of risk mitigation efforts, including land preparation, planning use and management, to enable a better understanding of what works
— simulation of extreme rainfall events and resultant flooding
— identification of ‘at risk’ river and catchment systems for flash flooding
— rapid and effective deployment of resources during a flash flood event
• act as the main coordination point for all NSW hydrological modelling, working with local government, other state agencies, universities, professional bodies (e.g. Engineers Australia) and the Australian Government (especially the Bureau of Meteorology and CSIRO) to improve future NSW flood risk assessment (and hence accuracy and timeliness of flood prediction) by building more formal connections between the extensive existing physical hydrological modelling (done by various NSW agencies) with the Bureau’s meteorological and climatological research and riverine flood models
• support local councils to improve modelling of and ensure adequate and appropriate alarm systems for flash flooding.
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REC324-4305 |
39 - Disaster Risk Management
39 - Disaster Risk Management
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Cost benefit framework:That, to enable a more systematic prioritisation of investment options in risk mitigation before, during and immediately following a natural disaster event, Government adopt and utilise a Disaster Cost Benefit Framework. This Framework will enable Government to estimate the investment required for any given disaster, starting with flood events, and will enable the fast allocation of funding based on detailed and rapid analysis of flood and property modification, mitigation, preparation, response and finance related options including:
• flood modification measures/flood defence (including dams/ water management; levees; waterway or floodplain modifications; etc)
• property modification measures/flood risk mitigation (including land filling; flood proofing; house raising; optimum zoning; removal of development (buy back schemes/relocation))
• response modification measures/flood preparation (including flood warnings; upgrading evacuation routes; evacuation planning; emergency response and education programs; flood data collection and sharing; etc)
• finance related options (including building standard reforms; restructure and reduction of stamp duty; direct subsidies; government reinsurance pools; etc)
The Framework should build on the preliminary version developed by NSW Treasury and provided to this Inquiry. To support this Framework, Government should also use the NSW Adaptation Fund that can be drawn on during or immediately following a flood event.
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REC324-4307 |
9 - Community education
9 - Community education
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Flood education: That, to build disaster resilience in future generations as floods and other natural disasters are a fact of Australian life, the Department of Education should design, implement and deliver an evidence-based, targeted education campaign (like sun exposure) in schools (new disaster curriculum).
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REC324-4310 |
41 - Emergency Management exercises
41 - Emergency Management exercises
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Task Force Hawk: That, to ensure disaster readiness, Government establish a high-level Government standing committee, Task Force ‘Hawk’, comprising key Cabinet Ministers, Secretaries and Commissioners that meets, trains and exercises to ensure Government is prepared to respond to any emergency. Task Force ‘Hawk’ should resonate with the community in difficult times to ensure the highest level of confidence in Government’s response.
Further, to improve the preparation for and timely response to disasters, and to ensure the emergency management systems and plans are fit for purpose, effective and appropriate, within 12 months Government, via the SEOCON, ensure all emergency management processes and plans have been updated and implemented.
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