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| Boats moored in the Hinchenbrook Marina lay smashed after catastrophic winds and storm surge caused by Cyclone Yasi in Cardwell on February 3, 2011 |
Queensland's northern coastal communities are at high risk of experiencing a storm surge – but the state remains under-prepared to deal with the hazard.
In a submission to the Senate Inquiry looking at Australia's preparedness for extreme weather events, the Griffith University Centre for Coastal Management reported Cairns, Townsville, Mackay and Hervey Bay as being at “high risk” of storm surges.
Their growing populations, coastal exposure and particular oceanographic settings place them at risk, along with the Whitsunday Islands and the small, remote communities which dot the northern Queensland coastline.
A storm surge “is the elevation of the ocean water surface occurring as a result of forcing by extreme winds and the inverse barometric effect associated with low pressure systems, particularly tropical cyclones”.
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Ocean inundation is a direct result of a storm surge and the biggest threat to life during a tropical cyclone event.
But the timeframe needed to conduct evacuations is limited “by the severity of other tropical cyclone related hazards”, the GCCM found, including gale-force winds, local flooding and available daylight hours.
In the more remote communities, evacuation was also hampered by the limitations in communication and the prior planning by smaller local councils.
Australia's current storm tide warning system places the Bureau of Meteorology as the sole agency responsible for producing the storm tide warnings which Emergency Management Queensland and other disaster management groups use to act.
But the GCCM submission points out there is no real time model which “explicitly” models the ocean's behaviour due to the approaching cyclone and instead matches its characteristics to a table of pre-run scenarios, which they say, sacrifices some accuracy.
The submission also points out other drawbacks in the current system and indicates the need for accurate real-time storm surge forecasting, which BOM currently cannot provide, given their existing resources.
EMQ requires “good accuracy” of a forecast large storm surge in the 24 to 48 hours before it hits in order to effectively evacuate a community.
The Griffith team have used their submission to the Senate inquiry to push for improved data availability and collection, further research into tropical cyclone behaviour and a more thorough investigation of storm surge dynamics and waves set up.
“Australia's network of storm tide gauges is sparse relative to the length of coastline and the expanding vulnerable coastal populations,” the report surmises.
“The understanding of the complex behaviour of the astronomical tide along the Queensland coastline, particularly surrounding the Great Barrier Reef is also hampered by the lack of ongoing water level monitoring. The recent state government cuts to funding at Maritime Safety Queensland and [the Department of Science, Information Technology, Innovation and the Arts] have severely constrained the ability of these departments to deliver previously collected data to researchers.”
The research team pointed to the storm surge modelling capacity technology available in the United States and pressed the need for ongoing funding into projects, such as their own, which provide strong support for continued and expanded data collection.
www.BrisbaneTimes.com.au
23.1.13
