Preparing your business for natural disasters

The Tasmanian Climate Change Office has recently developed a suite of resources to help businesses plan for natural disasters through the Disaster Planning and Recovery for Tasmanian Business Project. 

The resources are a useful tool for small businesses to assist in undertaking the planning for what impacts a natural disaster may have (also referred to as business continuity).

The experiences of the small business community (both directly and indirectly impacted) in Queensland hit by the series of floods and cyclone disasters in December 2010 showed that pre-planning did assist their short and long term recovery.  A survey of businesses cited reasons for preventing a return to business as normal included impacted customers, poor consumer confidence, lowe demand and losss of customers, building and insurance delays and lack of available finance.

The tools to assist you in preparing for natural disasters are available here

Prepare for summer bushfire season

The following is a link to a story on ABC News relating to the community preparing for the forthcoming bushfire season:

TasALERT - Tasmania's official information source

TasALERT is Tasmania's official emergency information source.  The site will provide a single source of clear and consistent emergency and resilience information.  The site has valuable information to assist the community not only during emergency response periods but also outside those times.

Resources are available for a variety of potential emergency events that may impact on the community and the community is encouraged to familarise themselves with the site and resources.

Bushfire season predictions

The Bushfire and Natural Hazards Cooperative Research Centre has provided advice on the bushfire outlook for the 2015 / 2016 summer. 

Large areas of southern Australia, especially along the east and west coasts extending inland, face above normal fire potential for the 2015-2016 fire season, despite many fires in some parts of the country over the last 12 months. The above normal forecast is mostly due to a strengthening El Nino over the Pacific Ocean, currently tracking as one of the strongest on record, but is made more complex this year by the influence of warmer sea temperatures in the Indian Ocean.

There have also been significantly below average rainfalls over the last decade across almost all of eastern Australia, the west coast and Tasmania. Such underlying dry conditions mean that any surface moisture from recent rains will quickly decline once temperatures begin to warm. 2014 was Australia’s third warmest year since records began and, when combined with such long term rainfall deficiencies, an early start to the bushfire season is likely in many areas.

The Southern Australia Seasonal Bushfire Outlook is used by fire authorities to make strategic decisions on resource planning and prescribed fire management for the upcoming fire season.

The outlook is decided at an annual workshop convened by the Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC and the AFAC.

The East Coast of Tasmania prediction is "above normal" whilst the remaining areas of Tasmania are listed as "normal".  

The community is urged to respond by ensuring that household emergency plans have been developed and if you reside within a vulnerable area, you have commenced preparing your property for the forthcoming bushfire season.

If you haven't prepared an emergency plan for your household, Australian Red Cross has developed the Rediplan to assist.  

Protecting Kingston Beach by Tracing its Past

As part of its leadership on climate change adaptation, Kingborough Council needs your help tracing the natural history of Kingston Beach. Council researchers are exploring the risks and responses to natural hazards in the Kingston Beach area, and need to paint a picture of its recent evolution.

The Council’s Climate Adaptation specialist, Donovan Burton, is asking residents and past residents to share historical photographs and stories of the area. “Kingston Beach is such a precious asset for our community. To make properly informed decisions about its future maintenance and adaptation, we need as much reliable information as possible,” Mr Burton said.

“That means understanding how the beach has changed historically, and how it’s likely to change and need our intervention as the sea level rises. “In particular, we’re really interested in images of any extreme event – for example, flooding of Browns River, a storm surge or storm damage, or 1967 bushfire images near the beach.

“We’re also keen to see any photographs taken before the sea-wall was built, and any images of the storm damage that prompted the wall’s development,” he said. Please send any images or comments to dburton@ kingborough.tas.gov.au (with “Kingston Beach” in the subject line).

The project is part of Kingborough Council’s award-winning Community Resilience program and partly funded under the Natural Disaster Resilience Grants Program.