Councillor on threat of Gold Coast Tsunami

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right, So the Council in the paper today and
trending in our news is Rebecca taken is that they're
planning for a tsunami should that ever happen. And a
part of that planning committee is councilor Glen Tosa. So Glenn,
what do we do? Is there a plan?

Speaker 2 (00:13):
There is always a plan. We have probably one of
the most experienced des after the management centers in Australia,
people from all over Australa come doing. And what we
did the other day is what we call some scenario testing,
where we imagine that something bad is going to happen
with like a tsunami or a big bushfire or a
flood or sometimes in the bio hazard and we bring
everyone together. And the other day we brought one hundred

(00:35):
and fifty stakeholders from all over Australia together, all over
the kind of South each queens and area, particularly to
this one, and we talked about what we would do
in the case of a tsunami. And yeah, we talked
about lots of different things. What do you want to know?
We we got a boat ready? Yeah? Have we got sirens?
Is that one of the things that we're getting in place, like,
what I mean.

Speaker 1 (00:54):
We'd have to be a part of the plan. Surely
we're the radio station.

Speaker 2 (00:57):
Oh absolutely, I mean we'd be on the phone to
the radio such a straight away and what's tomato, You
guys are like the trusted resource for all sorts of
disaster information. It was important for us to engage with you.
That wasn't a big substance of that scenario testing though.
We talked mostly about partnering with our local governments nearby.
We talked a lot about working with police and working
with some of the other agencies that help us in

(01:18):
these disasters. And you know where our plan is to
come up with a plan that can help us in
any desas that not just the tsunami. We use the
tsunami as an example of something pretty horrific that might occur.
And we used the scenario to test our engagement with
other agencies and also, you know, test our problem solving.
What's some of the advice that you could give someone

(01:39):
listening now if it was to happen, Like, did you
discuss what the advice would be? Well, the scenario that
we tested was something that we think would only happen
once every twenty five hundred years, so it's very serious.
It's a bit like one of those disaster movies. It's
almost like we were in the movie acting out the scenario,
just like it would be in one of those disaster movies.
But the important thing that we did is is the

(02:00):
agement between the different agencies. We have to practice that.
So even when there's a less serious incident or less
serious disaster that the city is facing, those pathways or
those engagement pathways are very common. We know who we're
dealing with, we know how to deal with it. We
know how to either move large groups of people in
different locations. In this particular scenario, one of the things

(02:20):
that we realize that if we only had five hours
notice to evacuate a large amount of people, one of
the things that we would need to do is make
sure that people felt comfortable sheltering in place. And so
whilst we're identifying things like where can we have evacuation
centers and where can we have places of refuge, we
also did a bit of work in making sure that
you know, some of those high rise buildings, when a

(02:40):
tsunami comes in, they wouldn't necessarily fall down. They're structurally
very sound. That we might need to move large groups
of people to upper levels in order to accommodate them
while the incident was occurring, and then the water flows
away and then we can do it. We do it
with a cleanup after. It's a simple example, but you
know that shelter in place is one of the options
that we have to think about with these sort of
things when we're moving large groups of people.

Speaker 1 (03:01):
When you were saying that, that's exactly what I was thinking.
If you were in a high rise, would you be
safe if you just ran to the top of it?
And so you believe that all of our buildings are built.

Speaker 2 (03:09):
To that, absolutely, Yeah. I think structurally we did a
bit of work and working out what shelter in place
would look like for a lot of people. And you know,
if people are reading the newspaper the morning and a
bit nervous, you know there is a very very low
likelihood of this specific incident occurring. But the benefit to
the rate payer and the benefit to the city for
us doing these scenarios is carving those really important pathways.

(03:32):
Cultivating those really important pathways between different disaster agencies that
can help people in an emergency like this or one
less serious.

Speaker 1 (03:39):
Right before we go mate, would you envisage a lot
of traffic.

Speaker 2 (03:43):
On the road. So if we had five hours notice
for us an army, we'd be basically obviously trying to
do our best sort evacuate who we could, but also
telling people to shelter in place. One of the things
that I'd be saying to people is that you do
want to stay out of that traffic situation. Traffic is
really difficult to get out of when there's a lot
of it. With him on the local road. Sometimes that's
a difficult thing. But you know, as we learn about

(04:06):
how to communicate well in these disasters, which we've been
doing pretty well over these last few you know, the
best thing you can do is jump on the disaster dashboard,
the City of goldcost disaster dashboard and subscribe to our
updates and we send text messages to people who subscribe
to our service and keep them updated when there's some
sort of disaster that's coming. That's the best way to
keep as cross what you need to do.

Speaker 1 (04:24):
Well. Then we love talking to you and everyone that
has a penthouse hand out keys.

Speaker 2 (04:28):
All right, it's been good. It's good for the hinterland,
you know, waterfront of views to the hinterland Right texts,
Thanks lending,