Community response to flood warnings

The case of an evacuation from Grafton, March 2001 Pfister, N. (2002) The Australian Journal of Emergency Management 17 (2), 19-29

In March 2001, a large slow moving East Coast low pressure system passed over the North Coast area of New South Wales (NSW), bringing extensive torrential rain that caused serious flooding on several river systems. On Saturday March 10, the Commonwealth Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) issued a flood warning that predicted that the Clarence River would rise to 8.1 metres or more at Grafton. As the city's levees were thought to give protection to a gauge height of 8.23 metres, there was a very real danger that they would be overtopped. In such an event, most of the urban area would be inundated, with only two relatively small areas of high ground in South Grafton (comprising less than a third of the total population) remaining above the flood waters. A decision was made to evacuate the 12,000 residents that live in the flood-prone areas of Grafton. The evacuation, however, did not proceed optimally and it was estimated after the operation that fewer than ten percent of Grafton's population left the city during the nine hours that the evacuation was in effect.

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