Emergency Response, Early Recovery & Resilience Joe Buffone, Deputy Emergency Services Commissioner
Overview • Complexity of emergency response • Transition to recovery • Resilience in practice
Environmental challenges • • • •
Climate understanding Awareness of risk Changing risk Changing populations
Environmental challenges • Ageing infrastructure • Planning Cascade effects: • Drought to storm, storm to flood, flood to heatwave, heatwave to bushfire • Earthquake to tsunami to nuclear disaster
Organisational challenges • Command & control • Coordination • Processes & common language • Information vs intelligence • Technology
Intelligence Cycle
Two-way information • From the ground to the control centre for analysis • From the community • From the media • Back out to operations • Back out to community • Back out to media
Real-time monitoring • Tools to track events, media, public info, social media in real time • Quality assurance • Intelligence and incoming information • VicFloods – 300,000+ • QLDFloods – millions
Earthquake Tweets
Transition to recovery • Recovery starts when response starts • Change in operational tempo • Needs analysis & rapid impact assessment • Partnerships
Transition to recovery • Critical infrastructure • Housing and immediate needs • Lessons learned VBRRA
Community resilience • Built-in preparedness • Built-in, advanced, integrated planning • The built-environment • Resilience is Information
Communication/Information
What EM needs from engineers Knowledge needs: 1. Climate change benchmarks 2. All hazards risk assessment 3. Natural processes 4. Social, economic vulnerability assessment
Connecting engineers • Technical expertise • Deployable • The built-environment
Culture Change • EM culture is changing nationally • Are you part of the EM system? How could you be? • Break down barriers, and move forward together
COMMUNITY
Exercise information flows • Exercising with the community • Exercising information overload • Exercise and stress test systems • Exercising strategic decision making timeframes and impacts