Yesterday I was fortunate to attend the community members’ day of this event following a council and other stakeholders’ day on Friday.

Just to see the 15m² map of the Richmond Valley catchment, which is, as was said at the event, our backyard, and to be able to identify your own property was amazing. Furthermore, the presentation by DRA in regard to flooding really placed it in its natural context for me.

Several things became clear to me during the day, including the fact that our State and Region have been poorly served in terms of preparing for floods and at a local level largely our Councils focus on their own LGA rather than having a catchment-wide approach.

Whilst I’m sure there are those who would contest this, when a comparison is made with what is happening in Queensland the evidence of a different approach is there. Particularly impressive is that the community is drawn in to all aspects of preparing for and responding to potential disasters in ways that are unfortunately too rare.

One of the issues that is troubling those who have either lost or had substantial damage to their properties as a result of our recent floods is being able to know what they can do and how they can be assisted financially.

I do hope relevant Council staff were at the local government day, but one of the suggestions made by the DRA, who have had their hands on the ground helping in recovery from the flood, is to check out what’s happening in Queensland. Having had a quick look this morning, anyone who hasn’t already done so could follow the link to the Queensland Reconstruction Authority at www.qra.queensland.gov.au.  

One video I saw was on building flood-resilient homes and the impact that can have on flood insurance https://www.qra.qld.gov.au/resilient-homes/building-insurance-and-resilient-homes.

There is a wealth of information on that site and it’s pretty challenging to compare that with our State Government’s leadership – or lack of it - on this issue.

That needs to change and sooner rather than later.

Ros Irwin