Emergency planning for the Hawkesbury Nepean Valley

Opper, S. (2000) presented at the 40th Annual Conference of the Floodplain Management Authorities of NSW, Parramatta

This paper examines the interaction between the emergency management planning process and a major road works program recommended in the Hawkesbury-Nepean Floodplain Management Strategy. The primary aim of the works, is to upgrade the regional roads needed to carry out the evacuation operation, which is the main strategy of the Hawkesbury-Nepean Flood Emergency State Plan. The road works were originally estimated to cost in the vicinity of $47million. As the project has progressed and detailed design work for the roads has been undertaken, there is the very real prospect that the emergency management requirements, and by implication public safety standards, will have to be reassessed because of the high cost of compliance. In implementing the emergency management recommendations of the Strategy, each additional hour required to carry out emergency management actions may have a price tag of several million dollars. What is revealed by this case study is the fact that emergency management requirements are difficult to quantify and are not a low cost alternative to appropriate urban planning and development.

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