The floods which struck the NSW Northern Rivers region during this year’s big summer wet were a personal and financial tragedy from which it will take years to recover.

The cost has been put at more than $1.5 billion; four people lost their lives; 169,000 people were forced to evacuate and about 4000 buildings have been rendered uninhabitable.

Floods such as these are likely to grow in severity as a result of climate change, so it is vital that the state is prepared. Unfortunately, NSW still seems to be making it up as it goes along.

The Herald begins today a series of stories on the floods which highlight some of the problems. Catherine Naylor and Heath Gilmore report that the Bureau of Meteorology briefed the State Emergency Service with information that should have been given to residents, allowing them to be better informed about whether to stay or go in the middle of the night of February 27 and early the following morning. Key officials with responsibility for flood warnings were absent on the evening before the flood.

Unsuspecting residents had little chance to move to higher ground and found themselves clinging to their roofs as the torrent engulfed their streets.

The parliamentary inquiry into the floods – which has been running since April – has exposed other areas where state agencies have performed poorly.

Even though it was well known that the Northern Rivers is one of the most flood-prone regions of Australia, the SES lacked sufficient rescue boats and trained personnel in the area to supervise the evacuation. Emergency hotlines were understaffed. It was left up to untrained volunteers, often taking considerable risks, to take to their tinnies and carry stranded victims to safety.

Much criticism has been directed at Resilience NSW, the agency which was supposed to be in charge of the immediate response to natural disasters. Local councils in the Northern Rivers have complained that, despite its $770 million budget, the agency has been bureaucratic. For instance, for two weeks it failed to allocate staff outside office hours to supervise an evacuation centre which housed 800 people.

The inquiry has also heard that thousands of people are still living in tents four months after the floods. While grants of up to $50,000 have been offered to businesses affected by the deluge, bureaucratic red tape has delayed payments which are desperately needed.

In the meantime, a government inquiry is struggling to address the fundamental question raised by the floods which is whether people should be living in the flood-prone areas at all. These districts are increasingly expensive to insure.

A clear and funded strategy is needed to decide whether people should remain where they are – perhaps with some help to raise their homes on stilts – or whether they should be offered land swaps and buybacks and moved to higher ground.

Some low-lying areas can be protected by levees or other engineering solutions but in other cases whole towns or suburbs might have to move.

These decisions are all enormously expensive. The NSW state budget allocated $2 billion for flood relief. That does not include possible costs of moving people to higher ground.

But the problems will only grow if we ignore them. The floods in Lismore and surrounding areas should make the state government think over all aspects of flood response.

Bevan Shields sends an exclusive newsletter to subscribers each week. Sign up to receive his Note from the Editor.

Most Viewed in Politics

From our partners

Source: Read Full Article