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 70 of 139. I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I 1'j THE FLOOD BROCHURE ?al:owinq the 1983 Alice Springs flood the regional Counter Dis2.st:er Committee considered ways of irrrp:-ovinq public flood preparedness. One of the main activities was the preFaration of a brochure "Flooding in Alice Springs". The brochure contains a map of the city showing the extent of t ' 1 20 'cO d' 100 ~l ' :l . t' -. c. . ne~: 1 1: ...... an 1:, L OOdS, (escrl.p lons or tne l....LOOG risk and warning system, and advice on appropriate action bef::e and during a flood. All interviewees were asked ~hether they had seen the broc~~re, whether they had read it, and if it was useful. In addition, Helen Ross, a social psychologist associated wLt~ the project and Dennis ?arker of the Plead Hazard Research Centre, London, and others provided detailed corLr~.ent$ .. Brochure distribution According to the Northern Territory Emergency Service the broc~ure was made available at "public information cent res If, the police station, council etc, in October 1987. }l-Dout 1500 copies were released through these outlets. Du~ing late November/early December 1987, 3000 copies were dis~ributed to all properties within the 1:100 flood area. In ~he period immediately following release some 500 additional copies were requested. It appears that an impo:~ant :eason for ~he broohure's popularity was the upto-dace map of Alice Springs it contained. ~he map should enoourage people to retain the brochure for longer than w-oul-:i oi:her;..;ise be the case. Aboriginal organisations were not included in the dist ribution. This is unfortunate as the lI-horiginal cDtmnunity is particularly badly impacted by floodinq. Awareness of the brochure Despite this solid distribution effort only just on half the residential and commercial interviewees recalled seeing the brochure. This may seem poor, but it compares very favcurably with the results obtained in comparable sit'~ations elsewhere (Handmer, 1986). However, broadcast medla representatives and all the government officials inte~viewed were familia~ with the brochure. Representatives of the Aboriginal Congress and Tangentyere Council had not seen the brochure. This is nee slJr~rising as it was not sent to them. As these and other ,Z\boriginal organisations are the main sources of informatio:1 for Aborigines, it is most unlikely that the information i~ the brochure would have reached people in the town oamps or those camping in the Todd.