Emergency Response,
Early Recovery & Resilience
Joe Buffone, Deputy Emergency Services Commissioner
• Complexity of emergency response • Transition to recovery • Resilience in practice
Overview
• Climate understanding • Awareness of risk • Changing risk • Changing populations
Environmental challenges
• Ageing infrastructure • Planning Cascade effects: • Drought to storm, storm to
flood, flood to heatwave, heatwave to bushfire
• Earthquake to tsunami to nuclear disaster
Environmental challenges
• Command & control • Coordination • Processes & common
language • Information vs intelligence • Technology
Organisational challenges
Intelligence Cycle
Two-way information
• From the ground to
the control centre for analysis
• From the community • From the media • Back out to operations • Back out to community • Back out to media
• Tools to track events,
media, public info, social media in real time
• Quality assurance • Intelligence and
incoming information • VicFloods – 300,000+ • QLDFloods – millions
Real-time monitoring
Earthquake Tweets
• Recovery starts when
response starts • Change in operational
tempo • Needs analysis & rapid
impact assessment • Partnerships
Transition to recovery
• Critical infrastructure • Housing and immediate
needs • Lessons learned VBRRA
Transition to recovery
Community resilience
• Built-in preparedness • Built-in, advanced,
integrated planning • The built-environment • Resilience is
Information
Communication/Information
What EM needs from engineers
Knowledge needs: 1. Climate change
benchmarks 2. All hazards risk
assessment 3. Natural processes 4. Social, economic
vulnerability assessment
Connecting engineers
• Technical expertise • Deployable • The built-environment
Culture Change
• EM culture is changing nationally
• Are you part of the EM
system? How could you be?
• Break down barriers, and
move forward together
COMMUNITY
Exercise information flows • Exercising with the
community • Exercising information
overload • Exercise and stress test
systems • Exercising strategic
decision making timeframes and impacts