 My name's Alistair Dawson and I'm here to provide you with an update on the current disaster operations that are running across the state. I can advise that in Rockhampton at the moment the current level of water is sitting at about 9.2. We are advised that that could be the possible peak. We are keeping a close eye on that. But it is important to remember that the unprecedented event that has occurred in this state since the 21st of December that these water levels will be consistently high for a long period of time and these levels could stay for 24 hours before they start to drop. But on saying that there will still be significant flooding in and around areas across the state. It could be there for up to 7 days. In Rockhampton at the moment there are 122 people that are currently occupying evacuation centre there in the town. 500 homes have been evacuated. There's 100 commercial premises that have been affected by water and sadly 400 homes as well that have water across the floorboards. In other parts of the state we're looking at St George which is currently sitting at 12.32m and rising as of this morning's briefing. The roads to St George are isolated. However I can advise that the pre-positioning of supplies including fuel has been undertaken and all that is in hand. Eight yards in the St George township are currently inundated and there are 35 voluntary evacuations but none staying in the evacuation centre. As a precautionary measure the senior citizens facility has been evacuated and those occupants have been returned to Brisbane for their safety today. In Theodore there is still water over the roads leading to the township of Theodore and there's a lot of work being done by assessment teams in the town today. In Condamine there are concerns in regards to public health issues in the Condamine township and assessment teams are entering the township today and tomorrow. Again this is all weather dependent for these teams and the access roads to Condamine actually have water across the roads and so we are using other assets to get ourselves into Condamine. The water situation at Dobby which has been raised we again thank the occupants of Dobby. They have done a fantastic job. We have been able to keep up with demand based on current usage by both using reverse osmosis which the local government has engaged and also by providing potable water via trucking companies. What I'd like to do now is pass over to my colleague from Emergency Management Queensland, Warren Brittson who will provide you with an update on some of the other aspects of the emergency that we're facing. Thank you Alistair. Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen. I just want to raise a couple of issues with you this afternoon and ask for you to pass on to your viewers and listeners. It relates around Emergency Management Queensland's preparation for the upcoming resupply matters that will be raised across Queensland. So we're looking broadly across what may confront local communities when resupply. Emergency Management Queensland is a lead agency for that part and we will coordinate it on behalf of the Queensland Police Service, particularly their DDCs. So I have placed in some local government disaster management centres EMQ officers who are familiar with the resupply policy and how that needs to go about it so we're preparing for that. The other issue is we are very much aware that today is in some way the beginning of the wet season. We're into the wet season of course but we have we think many months of a severe wet season in Queensland ahead of us. So what we are doing is we are carefully planning the use of our state emergency service volunteers and we're making sure that those volunteers are well rested and that they are able and capable to continue on with this good work they've been doing to date. We think another couple of months into this wet season. So part of that preparing ourselves for an ongoing wet season is making sure that the use of our volunteers is well managed. Part of that planning is accepting offers from interstate for volunteers to come to Queensland and where there's twofold we can use their support but it's also a mutual aid arrangement. They come and give us a hand, allow our volunteers to be rested and when they have issues then our volunteers can go back into their states and help them as well and we learn from each other so it has many good aspects about actually assisting volunteers from interstate. Just some details, we have a person from New Zealand arriving tomorrow that person is a disaster management expert and that's a forerunner to 15 personnel coming from New Zealand and we're going to ask them to go into Condomine you would have heard from the superintendent about what's happening at Condomine and we're also putting with those 15 personnel from New Zealand five state emergency service volunteers from the Bean Lee area to buddy up with them and to learn from each other as I previously stated. We're also putting 22 state emergency service volunteers from Victoria they're going into Theodore, they'll be based out of Billa Wheeler and doing some work in Theodore. We currently have four personnel from New South Wales in Emerald and we have five personnel from Victoria working in our state disaster coordination centre. So this is all about interstate cooperation, it's all about learning from each other and it's all about assisting so that we do not run out of steam early in our wet season where there's quite a way to go just yet. Thank you. Can I just invite any questions, if anyone has any questions? Can I just confirm those numbers from using on those 15, is that right? Yes, that's correct. Are you expecting to take more from overseas from other areas? No, we don't expect so at this time. Is there a need for more volunteers for SES organisations would you welcome them at this stage? Most definitely, there's never enough state emergency service volunteers right throughout Queensland and anyone who wants to volunteer to join it's a good opportunity to do so, perhaps not right now in the middle of this flood but as soon as possible when we get back to business that'll be great. How many volunteers do you have statewide? We talk about 6,000 plus but of course they're not ever always available there's very many reasons why volunteers are not available today some of them are at work for instance. So out of the 6,000 we've probably got over a thousand being utilised at the moment. Are any of them breaking forward? Have they gone to hospital? No, no we're managing their workload carefully as I said and we're making sure that they are taken care of and that's our job, emergency management Queensland's role is to support, coordinate and manage the state emergency service part of that is ensuring we don't get to that position. Can you say how many emerald from New South Wales? In emerald from New South Wales we have four. And what about WA, SA, etc? South Australia has offered support and we're working with them at the moment in the long term arrangements perhaps later when we see what lies ahead of us Tasmania has done the same. I think Western Australia's without being unkind to them probably just a little far away. Northern Territory right? No, we haven't heard, we haven't had any offers from them. Have you contacted them? No, we're waiting, we accept the offers there's an interstate protocol drawn up between all state emergency services throughout Australia and the protocol without sounding too much like red tape but the protocol offers are made. So they're aware that they could help, they just have not offered? That's correct, yes. What's the ideal number of SCS from interstate? Right now we have the ideal numbers, we have enough local SCS volunteers either working at the moment or resting and preparing for the rest of the wet season and the numbers we're getting from interstate are adequate. What's the average duration of an SCS volunteer then? We talk about a seven day task, so it's one day travel, five days on site, one day travel home. Going from Brisbane, where are the major centres? Where's the bulk of the force coming from? There was a major task force came from Cairns down to Emerald. There's a large number of volunteers from Mackay and Prosopine in Rockhampton as well as another set of volunteers from Cairns. There's a large number of volunteers from the Sunshine Coast going up into the Bundaberg-Buernet area. There's another substantial amount of volunteers from southeast Queensland, Bean Lee, going to Dolby. These people are moving around, that's our job. We're moving them in to do the job, we're moving them out to be rested and that's what I mean by managing how we do this. What sort of time frame do you put on that? How long the operation? The recovery continues, maybe it gets worse before it gets built up. Recovery is going to go on for quite a while and the State Emergency Service volunteers are fully involved in that along with other local government and other emergency service personnel. But as I said, this is the beginning of the wet season. We don't expect this to end until some time in March. The temp is fraying in the area. Do you mean in the community? We understand that obviously there's a degree of anxiousness for people to return to their communities and a great desire to return to their homes. It's a very natural feeling. We're very mindful of that. We're also very mindful about returning people to a safe environment as opposed to a dangerous environment. And part of the assessment team's role is to assess the ground, assess the environment, make sure it's safe for them to go back in there so that when they do get back they can actually start cleaning up their homes and their businesses. So in order to do that we need to be able to have sewage and water and power and so we have to be very mindful that we're not returning people to a dangerous environment. Is it important though where you have to be responsible for yourself and it's your house, it's your possessions? We acknowledge that, absolutely. But again, there is a responsibility on the disaster management system to make sure that we actually conduct these preliminary assessments which shows what we're doing across the ground to make sure that there are no public health issues for people returning. When will you be able to make a decision Well I've been told that the teams are out today and tomorrow so I would be looking for a brief, probably at least by tomorrow as to how we're situated but again I won't know until I'm actually provided with that information. So it could be until Friday? I don't know and I wouldn't like to guess. As I say, once we're briefing the ground we have people on the ground. They're the people that have the first hand knowledge of the environment, they're there and we'll wait for their brief back to us. Is the same going for the Condomine? So it goes for those communities, yes, both Theodore and Condomine and they are progressing at different rates and we're moving as swiftly as we possibly can to get people into those environments because remember the roads are still cut so we still have to get people in there. Well there's a number of ways they can do that. They can put them in and rotary wing assets to go there. I haven't actually quizzed the disaster district coordinators about how they're doing that. My understanding would be that they are doing that and that they are actually making inroads into those assessments. Road is still okay to the north. Is there enough food in the town or is there a shortage? Across Queens there is a question that we've been asking people about resupply and actually what they're calling is restocking. In so far as the advice that we've been receiving that the stocks in the supermarkets in Rockhampton are at an adequate level. The Retailers Association I believe has undertaken a resupply route through use of barges. How long that will go for, I don't know. That's a matter for the Retailers Association. But all the small towns are resupplied at a local level. Requests go into the local disaster management group for assistance if the local disaster management group can't meet those demands. They can raise it to the district level. If the district level can't support those demands for whatever reason, they raise them to state and we will meet those demands. In terms of looting, have you had any reports? I haven't had any reports of any flood related crime of that nature. And we are very mindful obviously by putting additional police into these communities that it is a responsibility for us to be very vigilant in that area. And I know that obviously crime is also opportunistic as well. And again, we would say to people that any form of looting is an abhorrent act and one that Australians, I doubt, would tolerate at all. Have any infringement notices or charges been laid against anyone trying to get back to their homes or doing their own thing? Not that I'm aware of insofar as that. I am aware that there has been some isolated cases where people have driven around road closed signs and probably enforcement action will commence in that regard. But again, that's a local issue and one that I don't have any real involvement with at my level. Are you aware of the weather outlook? I am aware of the weather outlook, yep. What's in the coming days? Well, the coming days is a prediction for rain and some storms. That information is readily available on the Bureau of Meteorology website and you can get rainfall forecasts for over the next four or five days. We're very mindful of that. We're talking with the Bureau of Meteorology daily in regards to what that actually means from a hydrology perspective. We won't know until the rain actually starts to fall. It could be no effect, however, it could be some effect and we won't know until the rain starts. But we are watching it. The current situation in Jericho? Sorry? Jericho, could you explain the situation there? It's in recovery stage, same with Alpha and again the transportation routes into those areas have been opened up. Did anyone get evacuated? There were a number of people that occupied the evacuation centres in Jericho when the water came up. I don't actually have those figures on me but after the conference here one of my colleagues will be able to get those numbers for you. Particularly for the people in Condomine and Theodore would have been evacuated How on the ground will you tell them that they're able to get back and then how will they get back? That will be relayed from the local disaster management groups and they're involved with the communities now. There are community meetings occurring that's what I am advised and that advice will be provided at that local level. The evacuation of areas is one for the local disaster management group along with the districts and our role at this level is if they need additional resources to assist in any aspects of disaster management is to synergize that and bring those resources to bear. What charge would be laid if someone when he gets the police orders will go back to their home? Well that would depend on the circumstances and that would be a very hypothetical question that really without having firm facts I wouldn't be able to answer at this time. Charges wouldn't be laid though? Not necessarily, no. There are times when we do a lot of things by negotiation it's not the police's role to necessarily go out and arrest as many people as what people may envisage. A lot of the work that we do is actually working with the community and actually talking with the community and communicating and that is our role and I know that that is a role that all of our disaster districts embrace. It's part of the role of the police to stop people heading back into their home. No, part of our role at the moment is to ensure the safety of the community and the preservation of life which is paramount in these circumstances. So no one's stopping anyone moving back to their home? No, what we're saying is at the moment those access roads are closed you can't get back in there at the moment and we're saying until such time as we've done the assessments and we advise the community that we're saying to people that you shouldn't go back because there could be significant health risks. Do you know about the water and the sewage plant situation in the condominium? Theodore and Adobe are still working through it. My understanding in relation to condominium I asked that question this morning it's actually septic so it's individual and that's some of the concern is the amount of water that's gone through there. Anecdotal advice is that some of those caps have come off and as you can imagine there is a need to ensure that the public health issues are actually addressed before we return people to that environment. Anecdotal, were you aware of that? They're still working on a lot of the utilities I think the power is one they've been working on I think we're currently working on fresh water, potable water. Again, some of those pumps are still underwater and they've got to be assessed before they can be switched on. So it's about providing infrastructure so when people go back they've actually got the ability to do some work in that space. Thank you very much indeed. Thank you.