Susanna Freymark
When there is an emergency in our communities such as flood or bushfire, volunteers hastily set up evacuation centres to respond to the disaster.
The State Government’s Homes NSW is finalising a new Remotely Managed Evacuation Centre policy that will impact who can volunteer at these evac centres.
During the 2022 floods, Roz Knights, like many other volunteers, helped run Kyogle’s evac centre.
In Kyogle LGA, five halls are used as evac centres when needed.
Ms Knights and her volunteers had the evac centre at Kyogle Memorial Institute Hall operating within two hours of getting instructions to open from Kyogle Council’s Local Emergency Management Officer.
“Eighteen hours later a Department of Community Justice staff member came and stayed for four days,” Ms Knights said.
“Then she went to Lismore and we were left alone again.”
At that time during the flood disaster, CWA did the food and Red Cross authorised the evac centre.
Ms Knights became concerned when she heard about changes the State Government was making about who was eligible to volunteer at evac centres.
She said she makes sure anyone ‘working’ in the evac centre has done their Working with Children Check, police check and some training about disaster response.
Ms Knights said Kyogle evac centre has 10 volunteers and seven of the volunteers have done the How to Set up an Evacuation Centre training run by Red Cross. The other three want to do it.
Volunteers at Mallanganee Memorial Hall have also done this training.
Kyogle mayor Danielle Mulholland said she was aware there was some unrest in the community about the requirements of volunteers from the State Government.
“It is hard enough in a rural community with an ageing volunteer base to get sufficient volunteers as it is, so to make them jump through hoops to basically recruit for one organisation is counter productive,” she said.
Homes NSW uses departmental volunteers to manage each evacuation centre and has partnered with charity organisations such as Salvation Army, Anglicare, Red Cross and Disaster Chaplains to oversee volunteers.
Homes NSW does this because it is easier to roll out evac training and to ensure there is some assurance of identity, qualifications, Working with Children Checks and insurance.
“We do not insist community volunteers are members of non-government organisation partners Salvation Army, Anglicare, Red Cross and Disaster Chaplains,” Homes NSW said.
“However, we do need them to be part of some formal community organisation so that we can be assured in everyone’s interest that they are identified, have a Working with Children’s Check, have been trained to our standards, and are covered by insurance.”
In storm recovery recently in Maitland and Port Stephens, Homes NSW said it partnered with local homelessness outreach services and Lions Club to provide assistance at evac centres.
“We encourage the community enthusiasm during a disaster to help, but we need to do this in partnership with organisations such as non-government organisations (NGO) to ensure quality, consistency and safety for both the volunteers and those who need assistance,” Homes NSW said.
Ms Knights said most of the preferred NGOs listed by Homes NSW were not active in Kyogle.
“It’s still forcing someone to join something,” Ms Knights said.
Homes NSW said suitable local community organisations in Kyogle that could support an evacuation centre would be identified if the preferred NGOs were not available.
As Homes NSW finalises its Remotely Managed Evacuation Centre policy it must consider the needs, capacity and isolation of small rural communities such as Kyogle during an emergency.
It must be done on a community by community basis depending on the resources available or where there is a real risk that departmental staff may not be able to deploy rapidly. Homes NSW said this was rare.
Ms Knights said it was commonplace that departmental staff took some time to get to evac centres.
Last year when fires threatened homes near Tabulam, department staff had to come from Ballina.
It is this distance and the gravity of the disaster, such as the 2022floods, that can mean the burden of operating an evac centre falls to local volunteers on the ground.
