UNLIKE the floods of 2011, Northern Grampians Shire Council’s main focus in the wake of last year’s fires was to recover from the social and economic impacts.
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Most of council’s assets were repaired soon after the event, however the task to rebuild many private assets such as homes, sheds and other amenities, the Grampians National Park environment and infrastructure, the social reconnections, and restoration and resilience of the economy continues today.
Council’s Municipal Recovery Manager, Greg Little said it was important for council to provide leadership during the recovery phase.
“The biggest challenge for us was that different communities had different impacts,”
- Northern Grampians Shire Council’s Municipal Recovery Manager, Greg Little
“Council didn’t have anywhere near the amount of infrastructure damage as there was as a result of the floods,” he said.
“With this it was really about the social, emotional and economic impacts, it was about getting people back into their houses and back onto their properties as quick as they could.
“It was about listening to the community about what their individual needs were and then to match our advocacy for grants and services with that.
“Then it was about trying to get the community connected and making sure that we built some capacity for future resilience so that where these communities have started to work together we could expand those networks so that in the future they had a greater understanding of things such as who was their neighbour and how they could help each other out.”
Mr Little said restoring the fire damaged water supply to properties in Roses Gap was one example of where council was quick to act.
He said council officers had listened carefully and respectfully to communities about what was most important to them.
“For Roses Gap it was simple things like signage and a sense of place, cleaning up the trees that were all burnt,” he said.
“One of their wishes and it was a simple thing - was a community township sign. They had never had one before and it was something we were able to do as part of the recovery process.”
NGSC was allocated $15,000 from the State Government’s 2014 Bushfi re Recovery - Community Events Package to undertake activities and events that reconnected communities and assisted with post-fire social recovery in the communities of Roses Gap, Halls Gap and Black Range.
Mr Little said the fires impacted numerous communities to varying degrees, posing a challenge for council.
“The biggest challenge for us was that different communities had different impacts,” he said.
“The Black Range community had different needs and different issues around how the fire affected them to the Roses Gap community that was underneath the flames and had a lot of property and business damage.
“The Halls Gap community didn’t actually have fire impact directly into the community but had the residual effects.
“They were impacted by the loss of trade, by the threat, by the repeat nature of the threat on their community and all those psychological issues that have come about from repeated floods and fires.”
“Also not forgetting there was a lot of impact on the Stawell community too with the Black Range being on our doorstep. People for that period were living in a lot of high emotion.”
The State Government through the Department of Human Services (DHS) provided funds to Grampians Community Health and Wimmera Uniting Care to provide personal support to people.
In some instances the support was not just related to the fire events of last year but the cumulative effect of the series of natural disasters in the municipality over the last eight years.
Council estimated the cost of the bushfire recovery to be about $1 million.
