LOCKYER Valley residents could have been warned of a deadly creek surge if the council had used an alert system operating in Brisbane at the time, an inquiry has been told.
Early Warning Network's Kerry Plowright on Friday told the Queensland Floods Commission of Inquiry his service could have devised a warning for the Lockyer Valley before the freak flood which killed at least 17 people in January.
Brisbane City Council has a contract with Mr Plowright's company to send alerts by SMS, email and telephone to participating ratepayers warning them of coming storms and tidal surges.
Unlike the national alert system operated by Telstra, which waits for authorities to order SMS messages to be sent, Early Warning Network monitors the weather around the clock and can alert councils to developments as they arise.
The alerts it sends to subscribers are based predominantly on Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) warnings.
But it also uses private meteorologists including Anthony Cornelius, whose Weather Watch service predicted the January 10 Lockyer Valley flash flood but had no powers to warn the public, Mr Plowright said.
"Our guys are monitoring those sort of events continuously," he said.
"Several of them were quite alarmed by what was starting to occur."
The company could thus have put out an alert in cooperation with Lockyer Valley Regional Council to warn residents in the area.
However, at the time of the January floods, only 19,000 Brisbane ratepayers had taken up the service.
The inquiry has also looked at how Brisbane residents fared when floodwaters hit the city from January 11, swamping more than 14,000 properties.
Brisbane City Council regional operations manager Sean Hodgson recounted how it became "impossible" for 250 council staff to warn people at every home that was at risk once the Wivenhoe Dam ramped up releases of water.
On January 11, staff set out to doorknock 10,000 properties at risk of flooding.
But the dam releases were scaled up the next day, and the number of properties blew out to 30,000.
Assistant Police Commissioner Peter Martin appeared at the inquiry on Friday to give his side of an exchange with Moggill MP Bruce Flegg about a food drop Mr Flegg organised for his flooded constituents on January 14.
The area was cut off from the rest of Brisbane by floodwaters, one of its supermarkets was flooded, and the other had been shut down by police after a scuffle between panic buyers.
Dr Flegg on Thursday told the inquiry he organised a private helicopter pilot to fly in supplies from the Sunshine Coast and he didn't understand why Mr Martin scuttled the plan.
Mr Martin said he was unsure he had the power to approve such a flight, which was "quite problematic", as he had no say over the flight path, or knowledge of the aircraft or pilot.
Far from being insensitive to the community's needs, official plans were already "well afoot" to get provisions in by army vehicle earlier than Dr Flegg's helicopter, he said.
Dr Flegg denied playing politics over the food drop, organised with another opposition MP.
But Mr Martin said he took a call from an ABC journalist 20 minutes after speaking to Dr Flegg, questioning why the drop had been refused.
"I gave an explanation to the journalist that we were well advanced with respect to our plans," he said.
"The journalist indicated to me that was different to what he had been told."
The inquiry resumes in Brisbane on Monday.
Source http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/breaking-news/sms-service-could-have-warned-lockyer/story-e6frf7jx-1226051331982
Early Warning Network's Kerry Plowright on Friday told the Queensland Floods Commission of Inquiry his service could have devised a warning for the Lockyer Valley before the freak flood which killed at least 17 people in January.
Brisbane City Council has a contract with Mr Plowright's company to send alerts by SMS, email and telephone to participating ratepayers warning them of coming storms and tidal surges.
Unlike the national alert system operated by Telstra, which waits for authorities to order SMS messages to be sent, Early Warning Network monitors the weather around the clock and can alert councils to developments as they arise.
The alerts it sends to subscribers are based predominantly on Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) warnings.
But it also uses private meteorologists including Anthony Cornelius, whose Weather Watch service predicted the January 10 Lockyer Valley flash flood but had no powers to warn the public, Mr Plowright said.
"Our guys are monitoring those sort of events continuously," he said.
"Several of them were quite alarmed by what was starting to occur."
The company could thus have put out an alert in cooperation with Lockyer Valley Regional Council to warn residents in the area.
However, at the time of the January floods, only 19,000 Brisbane ratepayers had taken up the service.
The inquiry has also looked at how Brisbane residents fared when floodwaters hit the city from January 11, swamping more than 14,000 properties.
Brisbane City Council regional operations manager Sean Hodgson recounted how it became "impossible" for 250 council staff to warn people at every home that was at risk once the Wivenhoe Dam ramped up releases of water.
On January 11, staff set out to doorknock 10,000 properties at risk of flooding.
But the dam releases were scaled up the next day, and the number of properties blew out to 30,000.
Assistant Police Commissioner Peter Martin appeared at the inquiry on Friday to give his side of an exchange with Moggill MP Bruce Flegg about a food drop Mr Flegg organised for his flooded constituents on January 14.
The area was cut off from the rest of Brisbane by floodwaters, one of its supermarkets was flooded, and the other had been shut down by police after a scuffle between panic buyers.
Dr Flegg on Thursday told the inquiry he organised a private helicopter pilot to fly in supplies from the Sunshine Coast and he didn't understand why Mr Martin scuttled the plan.
Mr Martin said he was unsure he had the power to approve such a flight, which was "quite problematic", as he had no say over the flight path, or knowledge of the aircraft or pilot.
Far from being insensitive to the community's needs, official plans were already "well afoot" to get provisions in by army vehicle earlier than Dr Flegg's helicopter, he said.
Dr Flegg denied playing politics over the food drop, organised with another opposition MP.
But Mr Martin said he took a call from an ABC journalist 20 minutes after speaking to Dr Flegg, questioning why the drop had been refused.
"I gave an explanation to the journalist that we were well advanced with respect to our plans," he said.
"The journalist indicated to me that was different to what he had been told."
The inquiry resumes in Brisbane on Monday.
Source http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/breaking-news/sms-service-could-have-warned-lockyer/story-e6frf7jx-1226051331982
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