IGEM Report 1: 2017-18 - THE CYCLONE DEBBIE REVIEW

The Cyclone Debbie Review

Reporting

Themes

A common way to manage information in disasters is through situation reports. Situation reports aim to capture accurate information from operations at set times in a concise format that communicates the current and forecast situation during a disaster event. 114 The expectation of practitioners is that situational reports will provide a common understanding between local, district and state levels of the details of the emergency, the needs generated, and the responses undertaken as they become known. 115 During operational activity, a local group is responsible for preparing situational reports and sending these to the district group. We understand the requirements for this are up to each district group. Local groups that have Guardian Control use this to generate and store these reports. Situation reports generated in this way cannot be seen in the district DIEMS systems; their entry is a manual process, and not easily checkable by local groups. During Debbie, some local groups regularly emailed through their situational reports to the SDCC. When reports were received, the SDCC would load these into EMS which then made them accessible to EMS users at the state level. District groups do not have a requirement to prepare situational reports, although we heard that one district was preparing these at set times and sending them to the SDCC. Rather than prepare situational reports, districts are required to enter key information into DIEMS as an activity log. This is not normally available to local groups. In one case where access to DIEMS was provided at the local level, the disaster management officer said they did not have time to look at it. At the state level, each SDCG member agency prepares an agency situational report. Significant work has been done by QFES to integrate reporting across the state level. Information is entered directly into EMS by each agency. However, we heard there were not enough resources to manage the reporting demands.

An example of the high volume of reporting during this event comes from Queensland Health, which provided 473 situational reports (“sitreps”) to the SDCC over a 19 day period. 116 It is important to note there is no integration vertically between district (DIEMS) and state (EMS) reporting systems, except for the process of escalating Requests for Assistance. Situational information about the local and district levels is entered into EMS by QPS staff in the SDCC. This is done manually from each district’s activity log. The Emergency Management System then automatically collates this information to help produce a series of reports. Some additional manual editing is required before these can be published. Debbie saw EMS used as a reporting tool for the first time since the SDCC improvement strategy. j Its three reports – Executive Summary, State Update, and Key Messages – are aimed at different audiences. From a systems perspective, we heard these were a great improvement from previous event reporting methods. We heard positive feedback about the system, including that it was easy to use, reliable because information could be updated as changes occurred, and accessible, as it could be used remotely and those on duty did not have to be in the SDCC to update their information. We heard positive feedback about the reports, in particular that the level of detail included was useful. More broadly, Debbie showed further good practice in reporting. Briefs generated by DCCSDS and sent to elected members were well received. The Department of Energy and Water Supply advised us of internal reporting which got accurate information to the appropriate levels of the disaster management system at the right time. However, coordinating up-to-date reports from more than 30 local groups, over 15 district groups, and over 35 state government agencies, utilities companies, not-for-profits, and others 117 is difficult. There were issues, mainly with pressure and timings for information, the volume of information in the final products and the process for getting it.

Notes j. The report, prepared in June 2014, provides an improvement strategy for the structure, operations and activities of the SDCC.

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6 THEMES

Information management: Awareness and training • Reporting