Risk Wise

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The children’s accounts began with the same period and both

mirrored and participated in the tension, discussions, actions and

preparations of the adults.

Both the household survey and the chil-

dren’s accounts recorded where and how people sheltered and

protected themselves as well as aspects of the damage, although the

children described the experience of the cyclone’s passage particu-

larly vividly. The eye of the cyclone was a stage in the process where

many people left the safety of their houses, attempting some clear-

up and even rescues of neighbours and animals, but it was also the

point of wind reversal and a separate destructive experience. The

final stages in the process of the storm were the initial clear-up,

contact with others and then the long haul of recovery that ran into

most of the rest of the year for most people and an ongoing slow

recovery for some.

The feelings of both children and adults in this event shifted from

the fearful or tense expectation as the cyclone came closer, through

the horror, noise and awesome destruction of the event, with its

accompanying emotion of excitement, into shock, sadness and anger

after the storm had passed. Both adults and children reflected on

their fortune in surviving as well as the trauma of their losses. They

expressed philosophical acceptance and many drew attention to the

community spirit, cooperation and support, and the efforts of the

many groups of relief and recovery workers.

Cyclones bring significant amounts of the rain that falls in north-

ern Australia’s wet season. They are a regular and predictable part of

the pattern of the seasons. They configure the experience of life in

the north. All are destructive, all are local historical markers, and all

can be prepared for through protective behaviour and mitigation

actions. Some cyclones, such as Larry, are severely destructive events,

and yet most people who live in the north of Australia can expect to

go through such an experience every two or three decades. Most of

the adults interviewed in Innisfail and the surrounding townships

had experienced a previous cyclone and most had been through a

severe storm. Most of the children whose stories were recorded can

expect to go through this experience again in their lifetimes.

Education is then of crucial importance in maintaining the safety

of all of the people who live in cyclone-prone areas. Although it is

the primary responsibility of the adult members of the community

to make preparations and practise sheltering behaviour that mitigates

the impact of the cyclone, it is clear that the children are equally

involved, not simply as passive receivers and potential victims, but as

active participants involved with all of their families’ activities and

engaged with the preparations and recovery of friends and neigh-

bours. Hazard education takes place in school lessons, serving to

reinforce the broader community awareness advice. However, the

lessons learned by children go further. School lessons are active,

requiring activity and the involvement of children, whereas commu-

nity awareness campaigns are primarily passive, placed before people

but requiring no action unless heeded. Children are also in an active

learning phase of their lives, generally wanting to learn even if some

pretend otherwise. The hazard education they learn as children,

however partial or fragmented it may be, stays with them for life.

Even more significantly, children share their school learning and

projects with their families, acting as reinforcers of the more passive

community safety and mitigation messages. All members of the

community share the hazard experience and consequent natural disas-

ter. All of the community, adults and children, participate in each of

the stages of a cyclone impact. All are likely to be traumatised to some

extent, so that the more education prepares people, especially chil-

dren, the better prepared the community will be in future

events, thereby enhancing resilience and mitigation.

In response to this community need the Centre for

Disaster Studies developed educational materials in the

form of a CD-ROM game,

Stormwatchers

, aimed at

primary school children.

As the initial game software

became outdated over the following decade, the impact of

Cyclone Larry prompted a redevelopment of the game as

a 3D interactive package on the Internet, in order to main-

tain its effectiveness for new generations of children.

Involving the media in warnings and hazard

education: Broadcasting to Bracs/Ribs

In April 2007 a very successful workshop was held with

presenters for an indigenous radio broadcasting

network. This project built on earlier work by the Centre

for Disaster Studies and the Australian Bureau of

Meteorology (BoM) which identified that: “Radio

announcers were not well trained to understand either

the weather maps or the real meaning of the BoM

weather reports. They download the BoM information

and ‘translate’ it as best they can, but don’t feel all that

confident about it. The feeling was that a training session

for radio operators to understand the information so

they could ‘translate’ the reports into everyday language

or even local languages would be very useful.”

The workshop included briefings by BoM staff on the

meaning of various components of their weather reports,

weather maps and weather warnings. A visit to the local

BoM facilities at the Townsville RAAF Base was also

undertaken. Participants were Broadcasting to Remote

Aboriginal Communities Services and Remote

Indigenous Broadcasting Services (Bracs/Ribs) presen-

ters from the Torres Strait Islands; Darwin; Daly River

area; the Tiwi Islands; Arnhem Land; Broome;

Townsville; and Palm Island. The workshops provided

the opportunity for radio presenters to better under-

stand the weather reports, maps and websites to enable

them to interpret the information and provide more

meaningful weather reports for their local communities.

The presenters worked under the assumption that disas-

ters can be substantially reduced if people are well informed

and motivated towards a culture of disaster prevention and

resilience, which in turn requires the collection, compila-

tion and dissemination of relevant knowledge and

information on hazards, vulnerabilities and capacities;

and

that warning messages should have local and individual

meanings and should suggest appropriate responses.

Participants found the workshop extremely useful,

and were better able to understand the terms used by

the BoM, and thus able to more easily negotiate meaning

in the workshop setting. Participants were also

comforted by the fact that they were not the only ones

who couldn’t understand the weather reports. Cultural

issues about the naming of cyclones were also raised by

participants. It is highly problematic for participants if

a cyclone is given the same name as a recently deceased

relative. Such workshops are equally applicable for train-

ing for other community radio operators.