Flood Warning and Damages in Alice Springs: Part 1 Executive Summary. Part 2 Tangible Damages Part 3 Intangible Damages & Emergency Procedures
Handmer, John; Smith, D. I.; Greenaway, Mark
E-Publications; E-Books; PublicationNT; Report ; 53/1989
1989-04-01
Made available via the Publications (Legal Deposit) Act 2004 (NT).
Date:1989-04
English
Power and Water Authority
Alice Springs
Report ; 53/1989
application/pdf.
Check within Publication or with content Publisher.
https://hdl.handle.net/10070/228902
https://hdl.handle.net/10070/673596
Technical Report WRA89053 Viewed at 03:02:00 on 18/02/2010 Page 38 of 139. Indirect Damages, Commercial 7he ~ajor components of indirec~ darage i~ ~~is sec~or a~e loss of :~ade and t~e c~sts of clea~-~p. I~ either case :~ere are difficJlties in ascr~bin9 ;recise monetary values. A s~~ma~y of cje salient effec~s is ;ive~ in Table 2.5. Loss of trade This is difficu:~ ~o ~efine due ~o she dlverse na~ure of the en~erprises i~~olved. An average period of :wo days ~or the susgensic~ of normal accivlty 15 indicated In Table 2.5. However, fer a :;umber of retail ,:,ut:ets t=ading never complete:y ceased and in two cases, both small retailers, sales were rep2rted as inc=easi~g. r)~e was a clotning store which was able to SGPply "dry clothes" 2~d the other ~as a record s~op. The increase in sales of :he la~ter is difficul~ to explain! For ~any forms of retailing :he loss of trade is ma~e good after the ~f~eccs of the flood have passed. f:~ exa~ple, food or hardgoods represent examples of deferred ~=ade. O~ly loss of profits, or loss of "value added", should be counted. For retail outlets the indirect losses we~e smal:. Government offices vary in the:r response. Some were closed to the publlc for a day 0= so, in order to Gndertake clean up operations. O~hers, s~ch as ~he Departsent of Transport and Works, had increased activity in ~esponse to the flood. In general, governmen~ agencies concerned ~ith dispe~sing services to the publ~c, ~ade UD the lost time ac the expense of some celay. The major indirect losses were l~c~rred by :he ~ouris~ ind~stry, especially ~otels and hote:s, and by associated services such as the casino and restaurants. In these cases damage to facilities resulted i~ a :oss of bed ~ights and 0ther trade which carnot be made up at a later date. In addition to inconvenience to gcests at the time of the flood, bookings for the next few days were cancelled. Many reported a further decrease in trade in the following weeks due to the adverse publicity f~om the flood and the disruption to the ~egional transport network. To a degree, some of these losses to flooded concerns were a gain to other accommodation facilities !ocated outside che flood li~its. Thus, in part, the losses ~ere to individuals but not to the wider- business cOITLrrt'..lni-:.y. It':"s possible t.o provide additional info~mation on t~ese costs, as indicated 1n Table 2.5. Staff were employed to unde~take clean-up operatlons and this is clearly a flood-related cost. ,he diversicy of cor~erc:al acc:vity is such that soecial cases occur with oarticularlv severe disruotion. . ... The bO'wllng club, nuenber 17 in Table 2.5, is an exa~ple. Flood damage :0 the bowling g~eens suspended all sporting activitv fbr about six weeks a~d the creens are unlikely co ~etur~ ~o prime co~diticn until some ~ix months after the flood. For a club of t~is kind it 15 impossible to provlde a simple monetary est irate of such loss. I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I