Council Updates Disaster Plans, to Keep Community Prepared

Published 19 August 2022

Moreton Bay residents can now access up-to-date disaster preparedness information following the devastating February/March floods that damaged thousands of homes across South-East Queensland.

Mayor Peter Flannery said Council has updated its Local Disaster Management Plan so residents can build better resilience to prepare for potential disasters in our region that may include scenarios such as severe thunderstorm, severe tropical cyclone, east coast lows, heatwave, bushfire and earthquake.

“The February 2022 floods were a stark reminder that we’re not immune to natural disasters here in Moreton Bay and I witnessed firsthand just how devastating it was for some residents who had their homes destroyed,” he said.

“Before that, it wasn’t long ago that bushfires ripped through parts of Moreton Bay in 2018 and 2019 - so we need to be prepared for threats on all fronts to keep our residents prepared and resilient.

“To do this we review our Local Disaster Management Plan so residents can update their disaster response plans with the most up-to-date information to prepare their families and their homes for the worst.

“We want to be upfront with the community about these risks, so we can continue to work positively towards building the resilience of our region and our communities together.

“The Local Disaster Management Plan also informs the community on how Council responds in these situations as one part of Local Disaster Management Group in a disaster situation.

“I’m extremely proud to be part of our Local Disaster Management Group and the role they played assisting the community with the recent weather events to mitigate the impact on the community.

“But we aren’t content to rest on our laurels, which is why we regularly review our plan and update our processes in accordance with State Government requirements to ensure they are as efficient as they can possibly be, while learning from previous experiences.”

Moreton Bay Local Disaster Management Group Chairperson councillor Matt Constance said he was proud of the Moreton Alert text message system that helped inform residents with key information throughout the February/March floods.

“The Moreton Alert system is a free subscriber service we’ve provided to the community since 2012 to provide SMS, email and voice alert messages for all types of different hazards that they may be exposed to,” he said.

“It allows us to target specific areas to deliver flood warning messages and with that residents are able to respond accordingly. During that time we’ve sent out 1.185 million SMS messages, 461,565 e-mails and 11,638 voicemails to residents.

“During the events of February and March we sent out 253 targeted flood warnings to residents, and by context, we only sent out 53 warnings for the previous four months, which shows how important it can be in a disaster.

“We currently have more than 67,000 locals who are subscribed to the service but ideally we’d like every resident in Moreton Bay to be subscribed, so please jump on Council’s website and subscribe if you haven’t already.

“We are now beginning work to provide this service catering for languages other than English, relevant to the needs of our region. We've launched this in Arabic and we're looking at developing further languages to make it even more accessible.

“This is a great function of the Moreton Alert system that makes it so much more accessible to provide key lifesaving information to as many ethnicities as possible.”

You can subscribe for Moreton Alert notifications here and you can view the Local Disaster Management Plan here.