A young shire engineer in Gatton pointed out the failure of the local council to have current disaster plans four months before the flash-flood disaster on January 11 which killed 22 people in the shire (of whom three are still missing) and destroyed more than 100 houses.

Justin Fisher’s report is eerily foreboding: “… little work has been done to improve (council’s) disaster response capability … there have been no (disaster management group) meetings for 12 months, the Local Disaster Management Plan requires updating, there are no … sub-plans for emergencies where council is the lead agency and there is no dedicated disaster response command centre.”

In addition, there was not much money to fix the problem: there had been no money allocated for disaster management and the $5000 set aside for fire trail maintenance was half spent, leaving $2500.

The bold young engineer set out a plan for spending $65,000 on evacuation planning, roads signs to warn drivers of water over roads, two-way radios, torches, water trucks and training.

His plan was approved, the money advanced and a joint training exercise with other councils was run in November to simulate council’s emergency response to a storm and severe flooding.

Despite the exercise, there was still no evacuation plan for any of the towns in the Lockyer Valley Regional Council when disaster struck on January 10.

It is difficult to imagine Justin Fisher’s heartbreak when the council formally approved its new disaster plan six weeks after the disaster, on February 23, in a meeting that began with a condolence motion to those who had died.

While the severe and widespread flooding was unprecedented, the lack of effective planning for even a minor disaster left many residents not knowing where to go or where to get information.

Mayor Steve Jones defended council’s disaster response saying the  disaster was not something any individual council could handle. State resources were stretched to the point that Federal Police and the Australian Defence Force needed to be brought in.

In one of the worst-affected areas, Murphy’s Creek, council workers did not arrive with help until three days after the disaster.

A local ex-army major who runs a camping business at Murphy’s Creek told the inquiry he was isolated for four days until he abseiled out of his property and walked to town.

There he found 300 shocked local residents taking shelter at the local tavern.

Souter took control with help from other local residents and organised recovery efforts, including setting up databases for matching donations and volunteer workers with local needs; and co-ordinating volunteer trades people and heavy earthmoving equipment to rebuild roads so isolated residents could be contacted.

Planning for disasters has picked up since the flood and mayor  Jones, who is also chairman of the Local Disaster Management Group, has set out a recovery plan for Grantham offering residents in low-lying areas a land-swap for higher land on a ridge adjoining the town; introducing a network of stream gauges linked to automatic sirens; identifying emergency evacuation centres and assembly points; clearing waterways of major debris such as fallen trees; and asking for back-up generators for telephone exchanges.

He has also suggested a national squad of disaster experts which would fly into disaster areas and work in conjunction with local emergency staff.