A report on the initial response of emergency services to one of WA's worst-ever natural disasters, Cyclone Seroja, has found some staff had to be "trained on the job".
It also highlighted a "lack" of financial management processes.
The findings were contained in an internal review into the Department of Fire and Emergency Services's actions from three days before the cyclone made landfall in April 2021 until nearly three weeks later, which was quietly released earlier this week.
In total, the category three system impacted more than 40 towns and communities across an area larger than the state of Tasmania, damaging more than 2,270 properties.
Insurance claims from the cyclone have already surpassed $404 million, according to the Insurance Council of Australia.
Location, COVID lockdown played a role
Response efforts were hampered by a range of factors, including the area's remoteness and a COVID lockdown in Perth between April 24 and 26.
Fire and Emergency Services Commissioner Darren Klemm acknowledged that even more than two years on, the recovery from Seroja was ongoing, making it "one of the largest recovery operations Western Australia has experienced in recent times".
"The efforts undertaken by local governments, volunteer and career personnel from both Western Australia and interstate, were nothing short of inspiring," he said.
The department's review identified five key lessons to be learnt from the initial response, including:
- the need to understand communities and their ability to appreciate the risk of emergencies
- improvement in how finances are managed in the wake of an incident
- the importance of staff understanding data sources
- opportunities to "reinforce" DFES communications as "the single point of truth"
- the need for staff appropriately skilled in managing natural hazards to lead management teams during emergencies.
The report was particularly critical of DFES's ability to staff the emergency, noting that because it was unable to find "suitably trained" staff, "a percentage of personnel were deployed to the incident or operations centres without role-specific training and had to be trained on the job".
A key issue was limited numbers of DFES staff being trained in "natural hazard" management – which covers things like cyclones, floods and storms – with the report saying "work is required" to improve the department's capability in that area.
"We've seen significant flooding in the Kimberley and Tropical Cyclone Seroja as recent examples where we do need to lift our capability to respond, and I think starting with the SES and supporting it better would be a good place to start," Shadow Emergency Services Spokesperson Martin Aldridge said.
"We've seen significant growth in the Department of Fire and Emergency Services over the last decade, it's now a half-billion-dollar agency.
"For us not to be able to have sufficiently-trained people to manage natural hazards in our state is a concern."
Management teams 'overwhelmed'
The report also raised issues around financial management during the emergency, saying some Incident Management Teams (IMTs) were "overwhelmed … due to a lack of robust processes and without suitable personnel".
It found the large amount of money being spent, "and the lack of supporting documentation [meant] financial processes were ad-hoc and inconsistently applied".
"The introduction of interstate resources into IMTs compounded the issue; with no documented incident expenditure processes to assist them, resulting in additional delays in procuring recovery actions," one section reads.
In the report's footnotes, DFES said it had trialled a streamlined approach to finances, and the inclusion of an expert in the Incident Management Team, during an annual pre-season bushfire exercise in September last year but that the changes had not been reviewed.
It was also noted that local governments reported the process of getting access to government recovery grants was slow, "impacting their ability to implement recovery actions".
The availability of financial support in the aftermath of the cyclone has faced sustained criticism, including from Mr Aldridge and his opposition counterparts.
Figures tabled in parliament in November last year showed just $6.5 million had been spent from a total pool of $104 million – which the government described as "the largest response package in the state's history".
The state government says across a range of sources, $50 million in support has been rolled out to date, of a package planned to cost $122 million.
The federal government announced last week it would conduct an independent review into the Disaster Recovery Funding Arrangements system across the country, which the state government supported.
"This review is an important step forward in identifying what the state and commonwealth can do to create a more efficient and simplified recovery funding model that works for all Australians," Emergency Services Minister Stephen Dawson said.
Addressing questions about the Seroja review, Mr Dawson said in the wake of an "unprecedented natural disaster", the government "did everything it could to support those impacted".
"DFES personnel and their colleagues across a range of agencies and authorities do an outstanding job under trying circumstances," he said in a statement.
"The allocation and resourcing of personnel and equipment are operational matters managed by the department under the commissioner who is highly experienced in this sector.
"These reports are ordinarily produced after an incident and I expect agencies involved will learn from these lessons for future events, to ensure WA follows best practices with the first and foremost priority of community safety.
"DFES have advised that the learnings from these types of reports are taken onboard and incorporated into operational policies going forward."
Poor communication problem persists
A separate report into four high-level emergency bushfires which raged across the state's south at the same time last year was also released earlier this week.
The "unprecedented event" involved around 1,000 staff and volunteers putting in a combined 23,774 hours of effort across just over a week.
In total, 77 structures were completely destroyed, including several houses.
"The preparedness, coordination and resilience of operational and frontline personnel and volunteers alike was tested," Commissioner Klemm said in the report.
But it found those preparations, which included deploying staff and resources early, and bringing in additional support from the eastern states, paid off and provided "invaluable benefits".
However, the review noted that "poor communication" resulted in "personnel at different levels continuously seeking the same information, and decisions being made with varying levels of knowledge".
It found that while "all [personnel] worked together, regardless of who they worked (or volunteered) for", there was a "lack of clarity around what was being done by the various levels".
"These types of recommendations have probably been found in every type of internal or external or independent report into fires in Western Australia's history," Mr Aldridge said.
"One of the great weaknesses that have been expressed in many reports has been how they interact, how they cooperate, how they share capability, but also how they transfer responsibility."
Public communication also fell short
Some who contributed to the review raised issues with the location of incident control centres – citing one being too far away, while another was affected by smoke and heat.
It also highlighted that while livestreaming community meetings was "beneficial", there was a need to provide more "regular" and "consistent" public information.
"This at times had not been the case, resulting in some confusion and frustration," it read.
"Research into other potential methodologies could be made to see if there are any additional ways of advising the community of incidents that could be used, rather than relying on them to see smoke to then start making enquiries."
