Australia Weather News

Each time a storm brews over south-east Queensland's Scenic Rim, Jerome Favier feels his anxiety levels rising. 

His artisanal French bakery at Mount Tamborine, on the Gold Coast hinterland, had only been open for nine months when a massive storm hit on Christmas night last year.

With electricity cut for two weeks, he was forced to close the business in the height of tourist season.

"We lost about $20,000 worth of stock. It was very, very stressful," Mr Favier said.

"After two and a half weeks, we began to reopen but I'd used all my savings and had to start again from scratch."

Carl Amor recalled his panic during the same period when downed trees and power poles blocked access to his beloved Gold Coast Motor Museum, home to an array of vintage cars that he and his brother had been collecting for years.

After an anxious three-day wait to access the museum, they found branches smashed through windows, damaged vintage cars, downed fences, and holes peppered through the building's roof.

"It's nobody's fault that Mother Nature decided to rip everything to pieces," Mr Amor said.

Over the past decade, Scenic Rim residents have faced a relentless barrage of floods, fires and storms, with the most recent 2023/24 Christmas and New Year disaster causing an estimated $2 billion in damage.

Stephen Moriarty, a long-time Scenic Rim councillor and chair of the Local Disaster Management Group stressed the need for a proactive community approach.

"We found out firsthand how difficult it was for emergency responders to access certain areas," he said.

"Trees blocked roads, communications were down and, for days, people had no choice but to rely on their neighbours."

Building connections and resilience

In the months spent working through the recovery, locals contemplated how they could be better prepared next time — and the Tamborine Mountain Community Disaster Preparedness Working Group was born.

The group upskills residents to be more independent and less reliant on outside help and emergency services during a disaster.

It is run by seven volunteers with the support of the Queensland Department of Community Recovery, local emergency services, and the Scenic Rim Council.

At the group's first community preparation event last month, more than 120 locals were trained up, among them new residents Rahny and Matt Davies, who want to arm themselves with information on what to do in an emergency.

"The group has identified areas where we can arm locals with the skills they need to be a first responder such as using a chainsaw, setting up a generator, and sandbagging," said founding member Clare Wray.

Ms Wray was inspired to get involved after her stint in the "chainsaw army" following the Christmas storms in which she cleared trees and helped those who had lost everything.

"In those first crucial days, your neighbours are your lifeline. If we don't know each other's strengths and needs, recovery becomes that much harder," she said.

Preparing for an uncertain future

Ms Wray's MBA research earlier this year on community resilience identified three key recommendations for addressing short, medium, and long-term issues.

The Scenic Rim has seen an influx of residents in recent years and educating new arrivals was top of Ms Wray's recommendation list.

Peer-to-peer information sessions, a practice that used to take place on Tamborine Mountain, were being revived.

"People are moving here from cities and may not have experienced disasters before, and they have to learn the hazards and risks in their adopted communities," Ms Wray said.

In the medium term, the research showed a need for regular disaster planning days like the one that took place in November.

"This planning will help us feel more in control during those chaotic first few days," Ms Wray said.

Her long-term recommendation was to embed resilience in the education curriculum.

That's also backed by The Australian Institute for Disaster Resilience. Its Education for Young People program promotes disaster resilience education for all young Australians, in schools and other educational settings.

Since last year's storms, the Scenic Rim Council has run the Stormbirds program in schools, helping children understand and cope with natural disasters.

Ms Wray noted that educating children had positive outcomes in other regions.

"After Victoria's Black Saturday bushfires, children who learned about natural hazards were less anxious and more likely to volunteer in emergency services when they grew up," she said.

Lessons from the past, plans for the future

Almost a year after the storm, Carl Amor is still waiting for his beloved motor museum to be rebuilt.

He believes community-led response teams will speed up the recovery process next time a disaster hits.

Cr Moriarty said he welcomed the community's proactive approach.

He stressed that resilience did not happen by accident — it must be cultivated over time.

"This isn't just about waiting for outside help," he said.

"These plans are community-led, and they ensure that when disaster strikes, we know who to turn to and what to do."