The Gripfast Consulting team have been involved in supporting the Queensland Government to manage the aftermath of natural disasters & pandemics since 2012 in various capacities. As Tropical Cyclone (TC) Alfred looms closer to the SEQ coast, we thought it appropriate to share a few of the lessons learnt which we captured for the Government after we assisted in the post-natural-disaster responses for events such as TC’s Ita, Marcia, Debbie and other flood events. While not exhaustive, the following should be considered by all agencies involved in responding to the aftermath of TC Alfred.
Command & Control (Roles & Responsibilities)
A lack of defined roles & responsibilities is often a silent friction point both ‘on the ground’ and behind the scenes. Misunderstandings amongst staff (especially in the field) can lead to duplication of effort & frustration through a lack of awareness and unclear division of roles. In order to mitigate this issue, position descriptions need to be completed for all key staff, first for routine business and again to preempt how someone’s position may transform to support organizations like Queensland Reconstruction Authority (QRA) during a disaster. This allows all personnel to be appropriately briefed prior to response efforts occurring – minimizing critical effort loss across all levels of the response when a disaster occurs.
As additional personnel and resources join the recovery effort, it is important to issue updates to roles and responsibilities and ensure liaison officers are attached to different organisations to assist in command and control.
Communication
A regular system of briefing has proven to be an effective tool for the flow of information. Our experience is that those who did receive regular briefs benefited from being up to date with the disaster situation. The heightened tension and fast tempo of response efforts in combination with limited back-up within teams, often ultimately limits the ability to continue these briefings as the response progressed, negatively impacting the response efforts. In order to combat this, organisations need to plan for redundance in staffing, especially in the first week after the event as fatigue sets in.
Confusion feeds panic and it is essential that the public know who to contact when support is needed and are able to track the situation in real time, where and when that support is coming.
Administration & Logistics
The travel booking processes for key Government agencies is often managed by a sole individual or centralized team, which can remove flexibility for deployed staff, especially in the rapidly changing environment after an event. Teams require independence when managing this critical aspect of the business through the creation and application of built-in processes that allow teams to handle their own travel and acquittal, allowing them to be flexible within the unpredictable post-event environment.
Information Management
The tracking of information into/within/out of local disaster coordination agencies can often be an issue, especially as hours turn into days and days turn into weeks – often leading to fatigue and distress. Information is often received during these periods in various forms by disaster coordination agencies, and without robust, sustainable management and tracking systems to understand where the information was sourced, there is often a disconnect between the communication of information and its allocation to the organizations who are responsible for actioning it.
Situation Room
Understanding the role of the Situation Room is imperative at all levels of the disaster response team and how its usage can provide vital support to key personnel and stakeholders. In line with earlier points, detailed Standard Operating Procedures for staff assigned to the Situation Room, which outline their role and responsibilities are vitally important, and the implementation of these need to be reinforced by training and exercises prior to an event occurring in order to ensure staff our able to execute upon situations with efficacy.
Surge Capacity
It has been the case that when a natural disaster occurs that organisations struggle to maintain momentum and provide consistent response efforts throughout the duration of the response – this is often due to the unpredictability of disasters themselves. Whilst we have seen the exhaustive efforts of Queenslanders and pride ourselves on our capability in this arena, it should be noted that the ‘success’ of these response efforts have in some cases been built on unsteady foundations.
During the last few flood events across Queensland, our Gripfast team has received multiple calls from organizations managing the aged and infirmed who are unable to get a timely response from local disaster management agencies because they are simply overwhelmed and understaffed.
Of course, we all know that ‘…time spent in planning is seldom wasted’, and we encourage those organisations that look after our sick and frail to plan for the worst while hoping for the best.
This is in no way meant to be a criticism of the Queenslanders who work for our government or who volunteer tirelessly to support our State during times of great need, we are eternally grateful for their efforts and commitment. However, we urge our teams to consistently reflect and improve upon previous efforts in order to ensure risks are minimized, efforts are maintained, and structures are determined – as you can never be too prepared for a natural disaster. It is clear that a formal, trained, and exercised surge capacity is critical to executing a sustainable, longer-term recovery and reconstruction response in these situations. It seemed timely to recap some key lessons from previous events from our perspective so that we can continually improve our response and recovery efforts.
In conclusion, from the Gripfast team across Australia, stay safe and well to all those in SEQ. Our thoughts are with you and the agencies that will be there to support you in the aftermath of TC Alfred.