In a case of the right place at the right time, members of the NSW State Emergency Service (NSW SES) Mapping Support Team were deployed for real when a severe storm hit on the same evening following an exercise at the Northern Rivers town of Woodburn, NSW. Heavy rain, hail and damaging wind gusts reaching 90 km/h impacted the town during the storm. Early reports indicated power outages, building and infrastructure damage including several dwellings with complete structural collapse. Rapid Impact Assessments were conducted the following morning to gain an appreciation of likely job types for the incoming out-of-area storm damage teams. The information was used to inform the Region Incident Management Team, executive briefings, Local Emergency Management Committee recovery operations and Public Information.

Summary of Key Issues:

The function aligns to the Ground Observer role defined under AIIMS. There is potential to develop and integrate this role as a formal capability available to NSW SES Incident Management Teams.

The information collected was valuable to inform response and recovery operations as well as providing base data to review NSW SES Local Flood Plans and flood intelligence records.

There is potential for NSW SES to collect flood impact assessment data on a whole of government basis on behalf of all emergency management stakeholders.

There is potential to increase internal capacity to fill this role through development of a NSW SES Ground Observer course.