Representatives of Scenic Rim Regional Council have hit back at social media posts suggesting the local government had not done enough for residents impacted by ex tropical cyclone Alfred.
Addressing a crowd at the Tamborine Mountain community town hall forum Cr Moriarty explained the work of the Local Government Disaster Management Group in response to negative comments on social media. The councillor said that while he had chaired the group as a representative of the people, the lead agency was Queensland Police with Council, SES, QFD, the Defence Department and the State Government among those agencies taking part in daily briefings at Beaudesert.
“There are many, many people involved in this. I was only elected in March last year and I took the role on because I felt I had something to contribute in that role.”
“I’m not going to stand here and say everything was smooth sailing and perfect. We’ve still got work to do around our places of refuge and I acknowledge that.
“You’ll be aware that Vonda Youngman (community centre) opened on Friday morning. “Four people stayed there Friday night. The conditions looked pretty good on Saturday morning and the people who stayed there were happy to leave.”
Cr Moriarty said it had been decided to close the community centre, not knowing that conditions were about to worsen.
“We had no idea that Saturday night was probably going to be worse than Friday night and as it turned out it was backed up Sunday with heavy rain,” he said.
“What I learned from that is we open the centre up, leave it open until we’re 100 per cent sure it’s not going to be needed again.
“That was a mistake, I wear that, but it’s not going to happen again. I promise.”
Cr Moriarty repeated the message during a community meeting at Beechmont on 12 March.
“Some people on Facebook have made derogatory remarks about the LDMG, calling it a joke,” he said.
“I can assure you the LDMG is not a joke. We’ve got a local disaster coordination centre over in Council and in that room for the last week there have been representatives from Queensland Police, Queensland Fire, Queensland Ambulance plus council officers and that was manned 24/7 through the height of it.
“These are very professional, knowledgeable people and every discussion we were involved in was what we can do to keep the community safe. If by no other measure than the fact there hasn’t been a serious injury, a death or a missing person in the Scenic Rim throughout this event, that has been a success.”
Cr Moriarty said he had learned to appreciate the value of community action.
“I reckon you guys can do a better response as a community than anything council can organise. I’m going to encourage our approach to be where we have communities like Tamborine Mountain who are committed to the community, council’s role is to make it possible for communities to do that.”
Cr Amanda Hay explained that she had not been receiving messages or emails because as a resident of Tamborine Mountain she had the same connectivity problems as everyone else.
Having opened her home to community members during the weather event, Cr Hay she was proud of the “99.9 per cent” of community members willing to work together for the greater good but disappointed in those who blamed council.
“For all those people that have been on Facebook and posted some incredibly toxic, nasty comments about council and myself, all you have done is harm the recovery response,” she said.
“I don’t normally arc up and respond to Facebook because it’s wasted time, but some of the comments that have been directed towards council and staff have been truly awful, and there are a couple of people in the community here that have rung council staff and verbally abused them, which has caused a huge amount of distress.
“I would ask everybody to think before you pick the phone up and have a rant because the staff are doing their best. They do not put up with abuse, and neither do I.”
