Disaster Ready Together Summit Two Day Visual Capture!

You may have already moved on – but remember Lismore? The regional NSW town that experienced the worst flooding event in Australia in 2019. The news showed families on tin roofs, locals rescuing each other in tinnies and crocodiles swimming down the high street. Days later, when the water finally receded, 90% of the infrastructure was damaged and caked in mud. Well since then, Lismore and the rest of the Northern Rivers Communities with the NSW State Government have been walking the long journey of recovery.

DHDesign was invited to graphic record the Disaster Ready Together Summit – the first regional resilience conference that brought together the local, state and federal perspectives on disaster preparedness, response and recovery. 

The 2019 flood was described as the first of the ‘new type of normal,’ climate-change-driven, extreme event that we will face in the future. Unfortunately, it highlighted to governments around the state and nationally, how unprepared our emergency management and response systems are to deal with these large, compounding disaster events. Recognising the challenges (pre, during and post-event) everyone experienced during this disaster, everyone knew that we had to learn from this historic event to do differently and improve the resilience and safety of everyone in the community. 

Across the two-day event, the region shared critical insight on preparedness, response and recovery. We heard from leading, local community groups and the Traditional Owners from the Bundjalung Nation (Resilient Lismore), experiences from local social services and community members (Sprung! News, Local Aboriginal ACCOs), processes and improvements from police and emergency management responders, best practices (Fire to Flourish) volunteer and NGO organisations (Australian Red Cross, NSW Reconstruction Authority, NSW Council of Social Service (NCOSS) and local governments (Lismore City Council Ballina Shire Council).