Emergency Preparedness

Natural disasters are among the most obvious and impactful results of climate change.  As the atmosphere warms, extreme weather events will happen more frequently and be more intense.  Over the last little while I've been writing a lot on this site about how to get ready - here is a quick introduction.

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What sort of disasters?

Climate change exacerbates five key types of disaster with which we are all familiar to some degree.

• Heat waves will become hotter, occur more frequently and last for longer.

• Extreme rainfall events will become more frequent and more intense, leading to bigger floods more often.

• Conversely, droughts will also become more intense, and this will lead to greater risk from bushfires.

• Cyclones will be more intense, with higher winds, and will travel further south.

• Sea level rise will lead to more more coastal erosion and inundation, and lead to worse flooding on tidal rivers.  

I've referred to these as the Five Horses of Climate Change, a kind of updated version of the Book of Revelation, and have written some pointers on how housing organisations can respond to each.  The introductory article is here, and you can follow the links in that article for more details.  The overall messages is that these disasters will happen, and there are things we can do to adapt our housing and ensure you are ready. 

 

Organisational Readiness

The key tool for organisations to be ready for natural disasters is Business Continuity Planning.  This is something every organisation should do, and it should be reviewed and updated regularly.  You need to:

• Assess your risks - what disasters are you likely to face and what might their impacts be?

• Develop plans - ensure that you can access key organisational information in a disaster, know how to make sure your staff and clients are safe, and know what steps you can take to keep running or get your operation back on track as quickly as you can.

• Review them regularly, both to ensure key personnel are aware of them, and to debrief and make improvements after n emergency happens.

I've written more in this article.

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Individual Readiness

Of course, both your staff and your tenants and clients would be wise to be ready for any disaster, and you might like to help with that.  There are some good resources out there for individual.  For instance. the Australian Red Cross has a handy set of resources that you can access here.  The Queensland Government has a good set of resources here, and no doubt other States and Territories will have something similar.   

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As you know, people who experience homelessness or who live in social housing are more likely to have extra vulnerabilities - they may have disabilities or chronic health conditions, have fewer social supports, and have fewer resources to use when and emergency hits.  Collaborating4Inclusion has done some great work on inclusive disaster planning which is well worth a close look.  They have a number of processes organisations and local communities can use to ensure disaster planning is inclusive, and also have  process called Person-Centered Emergency Preparedness (PCEP) which can be used with individuals with disabilities or other vulnerabilities to help them be ready.  

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Watch this space

I'm always learning about this and will be updating and adding detailed information via the blog.  If you want to get updates as they come, subscribe using the widget at the bottom of the page.