Streaming the Approach to Flood Warnings to the Gold Coast Community
Tracks
Royal Poinciana
| Tuesday, July 15, 2025 |
| 11:40 AM - 12:00 PM |
Overview
David Youssef, City of Gold Coast
Details
Key Presentation Learnings:
1. The importance of continually focusing on community need, collaboration and innovation.
2. The importance of locally relevant information with local flooded road and flood height references.
3. The importance of a decision support tool approach to assist disaster management staff to make sense of the situation and respond accordingly.
Speaker
Mr David Youssef
Principal Disaster and Emergency Advisor
City of Gold Coast
Streaming the approach to flood warnings to the Gold Coast community
Abstract
The City of Gold Coast is a major tourist destination with over 12 million visitors per annum, and a population of 700,000 people. This has 80 kms of rivers and streams and 70km of coastline. As with many areas of Queensland the City periodically experiences Tropical Cyclones, East Coast Lows and other severe weather events.
These events have in the past resulted in loss of life, infrastructure damage, community disruption, and environmental deterioration. The City is legally required to co-ordinate disaster response including warnings. Accordingly, the City utilises a Disaster and Emergency Dashboard, incorporating a public information and warnings platform.
In 2017 Ex-Tropical Cyclone Debbie triggered heavy rainfall causing extensive damage to infrastructure and homes, with major flooding in both the northern and southern parts of the city. Following this event, the City conducted a review to identify areas for improvement. One of the key findings from this review highlighted the need to enhance warnings.
Enhancements have been ongoing and have recently focused on faster messaging and providing better targeted information. DEMU has worked with partner agencies (State Emergency Service, Queensland Fire Department, and Queensland Police Service), the Department of Transport and Main Roads, and internal business units of the City to identify communities at risk of flooding and establish Flood Warning Areas (FWA) and associated Australian Warning System (AWS) messages and mapping.
Enhancements include:
• 24/7 monitoring of the river and rainfall gauges and automated issuing of local warnings (including via SMS).
•Pre drafted AWS compliant warnings for each FWA.
• Ability for a Duty Officer to “intercept” warnings if the intelligence suggests the warning should not be issued
• Uses near real time information to allow subscribers to geolocate themselves on a map to determine if they are in a potential flood area and then provide localised advice.
These events have in the past resulted in loss of life, infrastructure damage, community disruption, and environmental deterioration. The City is legally required to co-ordinate disaster response including warnings. Accordingly, the City utilises a Disaster and Emergency Dashboard, incorporating a public information and warnings platform.
In 2017 Ex-Tropical Cyclone Debbie triggered heavy rainfall causing extensive damage to infrastructure and homes, with major flooding in both the northern and southern parts of the city. Following this event, the City conducted a review to identify areas for improvement. One of the key findings from this review highlighted the need to enhance warnings.
Enhancements have been ongoing and have recently focused on faster messaging and providing better targeted information. DEMU has worked with partner agencies (State Emergency Service, Queensland Fire Department, and Queensland Police Service), the Department of Transport and Main Roads, and internal business units of the City to identify communities at risk of flooding and establish Flood Warning Areas (FWA) and associated Australian Warning System (AWS) messages and mapping.
Enhancements include:
• 24/7 monitoring of the river and rainfall gauges and automated issuing of local warnings (including via SMS).
•Pre drafted AWS compliant warnings for each FWA.
• Ability for a Duty Officer to “intercept” warnings if the intelligence suggests the warning should not be issued
• Uses near real time information to allow subscribers to geolocate themselves on a map to determine if they are in a potential flood area and then provide localised advice.
Biography
David Youssef AFSM has worked in disaster and emergency management in various roles both in Australia and overseas for over 40 years. On retiring from the MFB Melbourne as Deputy Chief Officer in 2016 David joined the City of Gold Coast as a Disaster Management Coordinator. Confronting TC Debbie in 2017 David quickly realised that providing timely, relevant and tailored flood warnings in a large and complex city with 20 seperate catchments is a significant challenge. The Gold Coast disaster and emergency management team prides itself on community focused innovation and collaboration and believes that this is essential to success.
