In her decade as an emergency volunteer for the Australian Red Cross, and five years as a volunteer firefighter, Amanda Lamont has responded to hundreds of disaster incidents – but one sticks out.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
It was in January 2015, two days after a bushfire had torn through homes and livestock in Moyston, Western Victoria, and her Red Cross team had been called to a property that had been, in part, burnt to the ground.
The main house was narrowly missed by the flames, but the backyard "bungalow" – home to their twin teenage daughters – had been turned to dust.
"While everyone was OK, the two teenage twin daughters had lost everything. All their clothes, all their things. I spoke with their mother and she was just devastated," Ms Lamont said.
At the time, the Red Cross was handing out MP3 players, pre-loaded with music, to victims of the bushfires – a small gesture, says Ms Lamont, but one that made a huge impact on this family.
"I remember the look on this woman's face. Just by having something for these girls, when they had lost their phones, their music, their clothes and everything," she said.
Ms Lamont says that, in all the incidents she's responded to, it's those who've had a plan for emergency weather events that have ended up better off.
While people may think emergency preparedness – especially in terms of bushfires – is all about "cleaning the gutters, trimming the trees around your property and mowing the lawn", she says it's also about protecting the things that are irreplaceable for sentimental reasons.
"There are very simple things like scanning photographs and important documents, and emailing them to yourself or storing them on the cloud – these are all things that people can do at a very low cost," she said.
John Richardson, National Resilience Advisor for the Red Cross, says he has witnessed a divide in people affected by disasters who say "I wish I had", and those who say "I'm glad I did".
And, with a new Red Cross survey, Ready, Set, Take a Step, showing that only 47 per cent of Australians have thought about the risks of weather emergencies, he fears there will be more "I wish I hads" throughout the rest of spring and heading into summer.
"It's certainly a concern to us, particularly when we see that nearly three-quarters of people have had some sort of experience of an emergency," he said.
"At this time of year, when we're coming into the sort of summer period, we know that the risks are usually much higher all over the country whether it's from fire, severe storms, cyclones or floods."
The Bureau of Meteorology is predicting conditions from October through to December that will likely exacerbate NSW's drought, including above average temperatures across most of the state.
This, combined with high chances of below average rainfall, increases the risk of weather disasters occuring – particularly, bushfires and heatwaves.
Mr Richardson is encouraging Sydneysiders, and all Australians, to think about their emergency plans in preparation for the season and to not wait until it's too late.
"It's really important at this time of year to start thinking about this and to get busier with it as you go along. We don't want to leave it to the last minute," he said.
Less than one in four participants of the Red Cross survey said they have put together an emergency kit, while around one in three said they haven't taken any steps to prepare for an emergency.
