How might we organise clean up volunteers?

The 2011 flood saw an overwhelming community response. 62,000 volunteers registered for the ‘Mud Army’. Many householders were grateful for their generosity to help clean up. There were also stories of volunteers ‘taking over’ people’s homes, entering without permission, and deciding which possessions to dispose of. “For already vulnerable victims, this transgression of their homes, their private realm, first by floodwaters and then by strangers, was traumatic”.

Peter Walters, “Communitas’: Remembering Brisbane’s ‘Mud Army’ Ten Years On” Westender January 9, 2021

Image: Mud Army, Brisbane, 2011. Credit: Brisbane City Council.