Cyclone Seroja: Qld mayor Mark Nolan urges Kalbarri to take heed from lessons learned after TC Yasi

Ten years ago last month, Tropical Cyclone Yasi caused an estimated $3.5 billion in damages when it destroyed towns in far north Queensland, and the mayor of the region worst affected said the lessons learned could now provide critical advice to the people of Kalbarri. Cassowary Coast mayor Mark Nolan told The West Live the category five Yasi brought winds of up to 295kph and a destructive tidal surge when it made landfall near the popular holiday town of Mission Beach in the early hours of February 3, 2011. Even though many of the homes in the region were built to withstand cyclones, the towns of Tully, Mission Beach, Innisfail and Cardwell were utterly devastated. A decade on, Mr Nolan said the scars of Yasi had yet to fully heal. “To be quite truthful, we haven’t fully recovered, bearing in mind we were already recovering from Cyclone Larry, which hit us in 2006,” Mr Nolan said. Mr Nolan said there were many lessons in the wake of Yasi that could inform the rebuilding process in Kalbarri, but none was more important than the State Government appointing a “strong leader” to coordinate the efforts of the various state agencies. “The Queensland Premier called in a disaster recovery coordinator, that was a critical move,” Mr Nolan said. “For Cyclone Larry, it was (former Defence chief) Peter Cosgrove ... in Yasi, it was Chief superintendent Mike Keating from the Queensland Police — you need a strong leader, you’ve got to have a strong voice at the table, with all the state agencies putting their agendas forward. “Communication is critical, you don’t want mixed messages.” The mayor said the other important step the McGowan Government must follow in Kalbarri is as much about the people as the rebuild. “The operators that managed our recovery organised insurance company expos, don’t leave residents having to engage on the phone, putting in claims,” Mr Nolan said. “It worked extremely well for us, and, if there’s one piece of advice I can give your areas that have been smashed, it’s that please ensure your disaster management coordinator engages with insurance companies and make them come to the (areas affected) and make themselves available for claims, because the stress of insurance claims can be equal to the stress of going through a cyclone. “I know, I’ve been through it.” Mr Nolan said the power outages that are currently widespread in WA’s Mid West due to Seroja would likely lead to another challenge for the recovery effort. “There’s going to be everyone knocking on the door saying, ‘We are an essential service, we need power generators’,” he said. After Yasi, that included tradies putting roofs back on houses and even laundromats, so people could clean their kids’ school clothes. “Again, the disaster recovery coordinator ... or whoever they appoint over there in Western Australia, is the one who sits down with the agencies and determines who should get priority,” Mr Nolan said. “Critical decisions to be made in the next couple of weeks.” Listen to the full interview at The West Live link above.