Afterword: Floods, Storms, Fire and Pestilence – Disaster Risk in Australia During 2010–2011

Abstract

Most of the natural disasters described in this book were single events affecting one region at one time. They were considered usually as isolated or individual events in the discussion of responses. However, climate change acting together with other factors, including population growth and coastal development, is likely to increase the risk of multiple natural disasters occurring in a short period of time and affecting the same region or country. Nearly simultaneous natural disasters will impose much greater stresses on emergency management systems than isolated events, stretching resources and systems. So, what happens when multiple natural disasters affect the same country over a short period? In late 2010 and the first half of 2011, different parts of Australia experienced a wide range of natural disasters (or risk of disasters), with locust plagues in south-eastern Australia; wildfires and heatwaves in Perth in south-west Australia and Sydney on the east coast; flooding in many parts of northern, eastern and south-eastern Australia; severe thunderstorms causing flash flooding in south-east Queensland; and a Category 5 tropical cyclone making landfall on the north-east coast (Figure 25.1). While these were not all the biblical plagues of Egypt, the country could be forgiven for thinking ‘the gods’ were angry.