This is the presentation delivered by John Shaw, Geoff Edwards and Scott Davey at the 2012 MEMEG Conference.
Its topic is the Northern Victorian floods of 2012 that devastated towns such as Nathalia and Numurkah, and Moira Shire Council's handling of the event using MECC Central (www.crisisworks.com.au)
3. Rainfall figures
Town May 14th – October 2nd February 27th Comments
15th 1974 – 4th 1993 – March 4th
2012
Yarrawonga 115 mm 25 mm 277 mm Major contributor to
Muckatah depression
flow
Tungamah 76 mm 78 mm 292 mm Contributor to Broken
and Boosey Creeks.
Numurkah 72 mm 57 mm 191 mm Recorded across
various locations
Nathalia 71 mm 65 mm 151 mm
Benalla* 95 mm 202 mm 215 mm * Rainfall recorded in
the week prior to
other towns.
The cumulative effect of rainfall events along the Eastern border of Moira Shire and beyond resulted in the Sandy
creek, Boosey creek, Broken creek and Muckatah depression carrying the equivalent of the water volume of Sydney
Harbour. Compounding this was the above average rainfall which fell across the entire municipality during that time.
6. The Emergency Response
• Municipal Emergency Management Plan activated.
• An Incident Control Centre (ICC) established at Shepparton
• Municipal Emergency Control Centre (MECC) – Cobram
• Coordination across 17 affected localities.
7. The challenges of an emergency
• Planning
• Advanced warning and mobilisation
• Volume of water
• Variability of water movement
• Planned development eg residential and farm planning
• Informal / illegal development
• Coordination of services and the community in an emergency
• Resourcing
• Chinese whispers
9. The impact across the municipality
• An emergency event that was endured for 18 days, a recovery that
will be measured in years.
• Approx 230 homes inundated.
• Over 700 properties isolated.
• Over 1800 properties indirectly affected
across 17 of Moira’s 23 communities.
• Between 3,500 and 4,000 residents
directly impacted.
• Approx 500,000 sandbags were used.
• An infrastructure damage bill expected to exceed $30M.
26. Infrastructure restoration
Moira Shires approach
• Damages expected to exceed $30M
• Dedicated Flood Recovery team to coordinate restoration
• In excess of 1500 “jobs” where restoration to community
infrastructure eg. Roads, drains, bridges, sporting surfaces,
buildings, parks and gardens, walking tracks etc have been
damaged by flooding
• Programmed inspections aim to identify all damage
• Approval from VicRoads
• Programming of restoration works
• Approved value of works to this time - $10.5M and counting
• Timeframe. 30 June 2014
27. From MECC Book to MECC Central
1. Provide a Common Operating Picture – Enter existing
records & “catch up” to real-time, then use MECC Central for
COP.
2. Training - Train Registry Officers, then promote champions.
3. Go Hybrid - Run a hybrid book/electronic system to avoid
getting in the way of busy EM officers.
4. Build skills - Progressively train key users in core
functionality, and set up shift handover training.
5. Go Electronic - When ready, hide the MECC Books.
6. Tune - Watch and course-correct to prevent learning bad
habits.
28. Virtual Agencies
• SES & VicRoads not in the MECC.
• Communication to those agencies
was via the ICC Liaison Officer.
• Being Agile - To assist in
workflow, create an agency to
track requests into the ICC.
• SES & VicRoads become “sub-
agencies” of the ICC Liaison
agency.
29. Outcomes
• Moira was bootstrapped from MECC Book to MECC Central
in 24 hours
• Almost 300 requests recorded in response phase
• Over 1200 impact cases recorded and managed
• Improved situational awareness & peripheral vision in MECC
• Clearer messages, nothing lost or forgotten
• Comprehensive reporting
30. 1. Keep it simple
Don’t overcomplicate things – the core of the system is
request tracking, and it requires very little training.
31. 2. MECC Central Champion
Appoint one or more MECC Central Champions and train them
fully.
• Responsible for setting up MECC Central.
• Must be non-operational in the emergency, to be free to float
around the room and support users.
33. 4. Keep Current
Small scale, short duration table-top simulations deliver better
training outcomes.
• Can be as short as 30 minutes every two months.
• Try it today – spend 5 minutes with us at our MECC Central
Lab to see how we do it.
Datalink have online training, on-site workshops and consulting
services to help you to get prepared and stay current.
34. What to expect in 2012-2013
• Over 100 feature improvements under development.
• Mapping improvements – Vicmap, Icons, Layers, Polygons.
• Track Relief Centres
• Track and manage recovery of the four pillars
• Vulnerable Persons Register
• Integration
...and…
• Mobile Reporting – Impacts and Hazards.
• Community Apps – Resident Communication & Self-Service
Moira Shire experienced an event that spanned almost 3 weeks. From the East of Bundalong and South from Yabba across the municipality to the West and finally outflowing into the Murray River at Barmah.
Moira shire work closely with key agencies as the development, updating and training in its MEMP. This document is designed to enable response, relief and recovery activities to a number of emergencies including flood emergency.State SES control all agencies through the emergency phase. They receive information, make decisions and direct a responses on the ground using the resources available to them.The Shepparton ICC coordinated the flood emergency response for CoGS and Moira. Representative agencies included SES, VicPol, CFA, LGA, GMW, GVW, GBCMA, BoM, DPI, DSE, Parks Victoria, Red Cross. ICC ran 24 hours a day through the emergency period and was supported by locally based command centres.Also in support of the Shepparton ICC, Moira Shire maintained its MECC which provided local information in and received direction from ICC on which it acted.
Moira maintains a Municipal Emergency Management Plan. Scenario exercises are held to simulate emergency response.Such a large scale and sudden event presents challenges for everyone involved.The volume of water involved creates its own set of challenges.Over many years and certainly since the last flood development changes the dynamics of water flow. Whilst some of these changes are known, many are unknown for their impact until the flood occurs by which time it is too late.Bringing together emergency services including those unfamiliar to the area is necessary. Without them the task would be more difficult. At a minimum it is reassuring. Coordinating with communities is always a challenge in the emergency.Resourcing is bought in from across the state by all agencies. Community spirit is the greatest resource but can be difficult to manage. The process is not perfect but is effective. SES, CFA and Council’s role in the emergency is limited by its own resources. There is indeed a lot of factual information available during the emergency. Intermixed with this is rumor which is often taken on face value by some and can lead to confusion and indeed incorrect conclusion.
There are too many individuals, groups, organisations and others to name but to say that without the collective efforts of all involved the impact could have been far greater.Sandbagging, catering, welfare checks and evacuations are but a few of the tasks. Family, friends and neighbors helping each other, communities uniting and support from many organisations all combined. This energy continues through recovery.
With the support of DHS, Red Cross, VCC EM, St Vincent De Paul and local service clubs
Datalink offered to come and bootstrap Moira with MECC Central, and we converted from paper to MECC Central in 1 day.
Here’s another view of our MECC. Notice:Maps on the wallsWhiteboardsActive discussionMECC Central via notebooks and projector.The MECC is designed to foster “eyecalling” and verbal communication.
Some interesting points in this photo8 computers on shared tabletop – a focus on team “eyeball“ communication rather than electronic. Gary Barton has PEEC on screen – he was switching between PEEC and MECC Central and transferring data between the two systems.Hydrologist (agency user) left of screen, was not a userWall maps, printouts, whiteboards compliment electronic.This was a few minutes after I arrived for the second day, and I quickly realised Moira was self sufficient.
Notice the use of whiteboards and non-electronic devices.Where are the agency users?
Reduced phone calls between MECC and ICCMany questions and status updates from ICC to MECC LO were answered by Bobby using the system rather than the phone.Phone calls were reserved for urgent issues A “touch-base” call every hour or so was made to discuss multiple requests in aggregate.MECC Central kept a list of current status of requests from MECC to agencies, and Bobby could track her own delegations to those agencies.
All counters are 0 now, as the MECC is no longer active.299 requests total
A sample case Road block – transferred from PEEC to MECC Central by MERC via copy/paste.Map shows location of road block signsThis was added in this way without training.
Once the emergency has passed, relief turns into recoveryMoira Shire is the lead agency throughout the recovery Recovery aims to support those affected by the flood event to get back on their feet.The challenges of recovery are many and varied.Damage to assets, house vs property, business and farms.Insurance and or access to
The impact of flooding on individuals is varied.While no one lost their life in this event, some people lost their homes and this is perhaps the greatest tragedy and our highest priority.Isolation can be as difficult as inundation. Unable to get to work.Assistance both financial as well as a helping hand4WD clubs, CFA groups, Corrections teams
For an extended period of time following the emergency, life remains unsettled.Planned events are lost, schools disruptedCommunity infrastructure is damagedThe cost to community is varied. The disruption to normal activities can be long lasting
Over 1200 impacted properties reported via MECC Central. As of yesterday, 811 remain open.
An impact record tracks the affected address, along with the applicant and the case status.Here you can read the applicant is at a temporary address.
MECC Central tracks all affected people, and can give you reports on, say, the number of girls under 18 in currently-impacted properties.The damage assessment and the services required can be customised, which we did.The services required tracks not just the services needed for this case, but whether or not it has been done – in this case, they are outstanding.
Councils annual Capital works program is approx $10M. Flood Recovery will double this over the coming 2 years.A rigorous inspection regime is being undertaken to ensure that infrastructure damaged by flood water is identified and referred for approval from VicRoads.At this time, $10.5M has been approved for repair or replacement. Approx $1M worth of works is being identified each week.In many cases, damaged infrastructure restored to the current standard will be in better condition following the floods than before.Council seeks to combine programmed inspections with customer requests to ensure that all damage is identified.CAUTION. This funding is only made available because of the declaration of natural disaster.
ICC Liaison agency set up to improve workflow. ItProvided a single counter for all requests that were routed through the ICCAllowed the MECC LO to assign to sub-agencies when she had passed the request to the agency, and thus keep track of each request she had to follow up on.It’s not the only way to do this, but it worked for us on the day. It’s all about being agile and making it work for the given situation, rather than being prescriptive.
Get them to network with other champions
* Community Apps - self-service - profile editing by affected residents - bulk & one-on-one communication to affected residents via email, web, app and sms - public information pre/post disaster
* Community Apps - self-service - profile editing by affected residents - bulk & one-on-one communication to affected residents via email, web, app and sms - public information pre/post disasterImpact Reporting - via web - from the field (RIA, PIA) - from the community (SMS, Social)