The Disaster and Emergency Management Centre (DEMC) is extremely well designed and purpose-built to be able to withstand a very powerful, sustained storm events such as Category 5 cyclone. It is fully self-contained and resourced to be able to stay operational for a considerable time in the event of power outages, water supply issues and transport disruptions.

The centre is continuously staffed by members of various government and non-government organisations. In the event of an emergency, teams from a range of organisations move in to pre-planned and carefully defined positions in order to provide management information to aid in decision making and resource allocation by these agencies.

Our visit and briefing was the first to the DEMC by a non-state-based group. After a 30 minute informative briefing with opportunities for questions, Heidi Turner, the Coordinator for the Disaster and Emergency Management Unit, gave a tour of the facility.

In answer to the question, “What can local NHW groups do to assist?” Heidi said that we can help make our communities aware of the need to prepare for climate related emergencies, such as fire, severe weather, heat wave right through to cyclones. We can do this by making sure that our meeting attendees know the City of Gold Coast Council produced disaster preparedness resources that are available online.

City of Gold Coast disaster resources: www.goldcoast.qld.gov.au/Services/Emergencies-disasters-outages/Get-Ready

Heidi encouraged everyone to go online and make themselves familiar with the City of the Gold Coast Disaster Management Dashboard at: www.dashboard.goldcoast.qld.gov.au. It contains a huge amount of current information about weather, power outages, road closures and other potential hazards.