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 86 of 139. 35 I~ addicion it appears that a proportion of the public ace pcone ~o Just glancing through bcochure information rathe~ than care~ully exa~ining it, with che possible result thac erro=s lD unde=sta~d~~g a=e easily made. [Note that the warning and evacuacio~ procedures were rather complicated] 3. Given these points it would appear ~hat some Alice Springs residents located beyond the 1:100 year :lood l~~it might, thcough glancing through the material, assu~e that they are not flood prone from local creek and storm overflow floodi~g, when the opposi~e ~ay be the case. The point is that the explanation that ~he flood limits relate only to Todd and Charies river flooding (which is well made in the NOTE) may well not be ~oticed a~d taken in by some. If the map is ever reproduced in she press, chen the danger of the NOTE being omitted, worsening this problem, _s qUite h~gh. It would be best to make these points clear cn the large map tit2.e. 4. Because nothing is said about floods i:. excess of 1:100 year frequency, the brochure may sugge c : to some (perhaps even to many) that this is what tec:nicians call the probable maximum flood. Presumably this ,s not so, and the 1:120 year flood and so on are possible. I~ thiS is so, then the b~ochu=e should be clearer on ~his ~~int. 5. Do people in Alice Springs know what 'Evacuation Centres' are? This may be a well understood term ~n the ~own and withi~ Australia, and if so there is no p~oblem. However, if this is ~ot so, then an 'Evacuation Centre' could be either: a) a place for people to asse:nble a!)d receive as5istance from the emergency services, or b) a place whel:"e the emergency services are administered from (in which case the a=::-ival of large nurnbers of evacuees might not help). ~he brochure does not really explain what such Centres are, and wha~ people can expect to happen the~e. 6. Whilst it is second-nature to technicians and ~hose experienced in reading maps, we should anticipace t~at some of the oublic 'will :'1ave difficult:y working out from the map whet~er' or not ~hey are flood prone. For example, so~e may be sufficient~y unsure abo~t ::-eading a map and ~ndersta~ding flood ohenomena as to be unable to determine whether or not they live in the flood prone area if their property is somewhece becween the various flood limits eg between the 1:50 and 1:180 limits. This is because the map gives them two pieces of information: they are not prone to 1:50 year floods but they are prone to 1:100 year floods and also because t:he inexoerienced may not be able to easily work out which side of the limits (ie the lines on the map) is flood prone/not flood prone. I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I