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TULLY SS
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Jennifer Sloane:
[0:00:05.1] Tully State School is a [SL B and A 0:00:07.4] that’s
situated about an hour and a half south of Cairns. It’s nestled
into the foothills of the Great Dividing Range, and is part of one
the wettest places on the planet.
The natural disasters that I’ve been involved in in recent years
most certainly is Yasi, but I also did Larry, and before that
Winifred, and Joy. So the cyclones are our major disaster. Most
certainly Larry and Yasi were significant events, with Yasi
being the most destructive.
When Cyclone Yasi was developing off the coastline, we were
quite familiar with this sort of thing happening. Our regional
office had been giving us regional reports, and so we put into
practice our Emergency Plan, which is based on the Regional
Emergency Plan, and we do lots of preparation. So that includes
sending information out to parents about preparing for cyclones,
as well as doing the on the ground stuff at the school, which is
basically putting away everything that can possibly fly, making
sure doors, windows et cetera are closed, making sure our phone
network is up and running. We have a phone tree so that we can
keep in contact with all staff members, and so that all went into
play. We liaised with our Regional Office, and the day before
the school closed, which meant that the students were at home
with their parents, who were also preparing, and staff too could
go home and prepare their homes as well. The cyclone came,
and it was quite a significant event. It happened during the
night. It was loud, it was scary, and there was lots of damage.
At that time our phone network, our phone tree, was put into
place, where we, as a leadership team, we each have a bundle of
people to ring and make sure they’re okay. Anybody we
couldn’t locate we started to send out next door neighbours and
that type of thing to make sure everyone was okay. By the next
day we had the Army coming in and clearing away the massive
amount of vegetation debris that was over the grounds, so that
we could really establish what was what.
After that, our leadership sat down, and we needed to find
another place to work from. Our admin block had been severely
damaged with a huge pine tree, 70 ton they tell me. So we set
up and we established what we thought was going to be our
communication centre, however our phone lines were dead,
even the ones that don’t require power, and we knew we had
very limited time without mobiles before that service goes down
for a couple of days. We had regional personnel visiting our
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schools then on a daily basis. From there, we started to try to
get our classrooms and our school safe for the return of our
students as soon as possible. That was our key priority at that
time.
Messages out to the community were done through the radio
station predominantly.
We also liaised with community
members, most certainly our local Police, our SES, our local
Council, to make sure that we were giving our community
members as much support as we could, and that we weren’t
overlapping our services.
The local government had houses available in Cairns by about
the third day, so some of our families were actually relocated to
that area, so it was really important that we got messages out to
parents and children that they’re okay, they’ve just gone
somewhere else, because everyone’s really wellbeing of each
other.
About five days, I think it was, we returned back to classes. We
had no power, had no drinking water. We did have running
water, which was a bonus, and we ran on generators for things
like a fridge to keep milk and our medications cold. At the same
time, Regional Office sent personnel down to talk with staff
about their well being and how to work with the students after
such a traumatic event. We also had extra Guidance Officers to
work in the school to work with parents as well as the students.
We did a huge evaluation of the students, assessment of the
students and their well being, and kept an eye on a few who we
were most concerned about. But generally speaking our kids
were really resilient, and things started to go back into place,
except for the heat and the water and the sausage sizzles, back
into regular play within a week or two of the students coming
back to school. It took longer of course to recarpet, repaint, that
type of thing.
We had to do an asbestos management, as we have asbestos in
one of our older buildings, so parts of that building were
cordoned off. We also had major leakage happening, so the
power didn’t go back on for a long time in that building as well.
Yearly we review our Management Plan, Emergency
Management Plan, and we do that with our leadership team.
This time round we have a lot of information about what worked
and what didn’t work post-Yasi, and we look at that and the staff
and the facilities that we now have, and on a yearly basis we
walk through what we would do in preparation, the imminent
disaster occurring, immediately after and the long term, and we
have put things into place there upon reflection of what
happened prior.
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We identify the relevant risks, pretty much from experience
primarily, and we also use personnel from Regional Office to
come and do a walk through, through the school, and identify
facilities type things. As far as the well being of students and
staff, we’ve done a reflective, an evaluation of what we did
before, and we’ve come up with a few ideas about how we can
improve that as well. So basically we look at what worked, and
keep that, and then we look at what else we needed to put into
place down the track, and we’re now incorporating that as well.
Caroline Chadwick:
[0:07:01.9] In preparation for this year’s disaster season,
referring to our emergency management planning and ensuring
that everybody is aware of what’s in there. The resources that
we need to put in place are firstly making sure that we have
enough mobile phones. That was one thing we found that
communication was very lacking, so we have purchased more
mobile phones. Other resources that we need to get in place is
really just getting our plans ready, making sure that everybody
has their communication tree, know who they need to contact,
that our school grounds is as safe as possible in the event of a
cyclone coming.
Jennifer Sloane:
[0:07:45.0] Within the school we have a leadership team, so
those people are all well equipped with the knowledge about the
Emergency Plan. The staff in general know the Emergency
Plan, and everyone is involved in the formulation of the key
communication strategies, ie the phone tree’s our primary one.
Everyone is trained in how to support each other welfare wise
after a traumatic event, and with the children as well.
A lot of people are involved in the planning phases of organising
what we need to do in such an event. The Regional Office staff
most certainly are key to that, and they make contact straight up.
Our local community, the Police, the Council, the local support
agencies, Red Cross type of agencies, we also liaise with them
to see what we can do to ensure that we’ve got things ready after
the event and to do any preparation prior.
I suppose the key points to being prepared for this type of event
lie within communication and knowledge. Communication’s
the biggest one for us. We need to communicate with the
parents to let them know what’s happening. Our region always
sends weather reports, even when it’s not cyclone season, about
flooding, major rains, major storms, so as soon as we get that
information, that gets sent to the staff. If it’s something that we
think that the community need to know that they may not get
from the media, we’ll actually send home a flyer. If it looks like
the cyclone’s coming, we’ve got separate letters that we send
home to let parents know to listen to the, which radio stations to
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listen to, that they’ll get all the information from those media
outlets, and we usually send home a flyer to say “This is how
you can prepare for the cyclone”.
As far as working through drills with the children, we comply
with what is required through the EQ processes of evacuation,
lockdown, et cetera. With response to things like flooding and
the cyclone, we also put in place on a regular basis through
different ways, assemblies et cetera and class lessons,
information to students about the safety issues involved in not
swimming in flooded creeks, ensuring that everything’s tied
down when there’s cyclones, those sorts of things, as a matter of
course.
Our Emergency Plan was crucial to the success that we had in
managing the preparation and the recovery components of the
cyclone. Without it, I think it would be very haphazard, and the
fact that it lies parallel with the regional one. Central Office
also offers a great resource through the ESMU, and that has lots
of information that is really worthwhile for Principals who are
ready to set up an Emergency Plan, to respond to an emergency,
so I would highly recommend that as well.
Things that worked really well was the regional network of
specified personnel for us to work through, and we will actually
mirror that next time in our school setting. That worked
extraordinarily well. We had to, it was easier to work with one
person rather than the six people underneath that person each
time they came to the school.
It’s interesting that the staff actually need support down the
track when the insurance stuff comes through, when they need
to have time off to work with the insurance or the tradespeople.
Our region were very generous at an immediate response when
we first opened the schools, they sent down teams of teachers
who are working for us in EQ, who had volunteered to come
down and replace staff members as they work through their own
recovery or their own response in their individual lives, and that
was really powerful and very much appreciated.
The other thing that worked really well was just having the
school open as soon as possible for the students. Research has
shown that getting back into routine is important for everyone
after such an event, and having the children back within the
week, or just over a week, was massive as far as getting it done,
but so, so important for the children.
Additional resources that we’re going to put into place this time
round really revolve around that immediate response after the
cyclone, and that’s to accommodate the flood of donations and
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outside of school support agencies, family well being, that type
of thing.
We’re also going to ensure that we have
communication systems up that don’t rely on phone lines going
down, that type of thing.
Caroline Chadwick:
[0:13:06.7] The most important thing that I really felt was that
we needed extra support after the cyclone, that the
administration team, our leadership team, had support there
beside them. The emotions that we all feel, at times we needed
to just take a break, and you needed somebody with a clear head
to make some decisions, because sometimes you’re just too
involved in the decision emotionally. Appointing specific tasks
to people, in my case for the BSM, I would make sure that I had
somebody to look after resource replacement, somebody that
dealt with facilities, somebody that also helped out with the
student and staff support.
Jennifer Sloane:
[0:13:49.2] One of the key things is to get kids back to school
and to have parents feel that their children are safe at school
after such an event. One of the key things is the media, and
spoke on ABC Radio explaining to parents what we had in place
already, how the children were going to be safe, the support that
the region was giving the school and the personnel and the
children, and themselves if they wanted it. So basically it was
through the media, and very much word of mouth, because we
didn’t have access to anything like photocopying and printing et
cetera until well into the weeks after the cyclone. We held
meetings for people to come in and have a sausage sizzle.
Everyone, when they think of cyclones here, will say “We hate
sausage sizzles”, but it meant that people had a hot meal at least
once a day, and it gave people an opportunity to talk, and that
was really powerful.
In reflection after the cyclone, we’ve put a few things into place
as far as facilities and grounds to ensure that we’re not going to
be slammed with a whole lot of vegetation again. So we’re very
careful about what sort of plants that we put into the ground
around the school, the size of the trees and the proximity to
buildings. The shade cloths across the school are all able to be
removed at notice, so that sort of thing is very much in place.
We don’t have a lot of free flying material around the school
anymore. Any that is, is able to be fit into halls et cetera, so
that’s the big one.
Probably the lasting impacts that we have observed include the
fact that students know they can survive a cyclone. Staff know
that the school will recover after a cyclone. Parents know that
they can recover after a cyclone. We live in a most beautiful
part of the world, where cyclones are part of the weather pattern.
We are now experienced in recovering from such an event, and
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that gives us power, the power of knowledge, and that’s just
going to make it easier should it happen again.
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