Image: Resilient Kurilpa logo artist, Maeve Lejeune, stands with Resilient Kurilpa members, Paula Hardie and Melinda McInturff, beside the Kurilpa Flood Library float at the Kurilpa Derby in September 2023.

Taking stock of our work to date

It’s been 15 months since Resilient Kurilpa released the Template Flood Mitigation Plan for Kurilpa Apartments, during a public meeting at Queensland Ballet’s Thomas Dixon Building.

Since then, our small group of committed local residents have continued developing resources and advocating for actions from all tiers of Government to improve flood preparation and resilience in our suburbs.

We are motivated by the inevitability of future floods and impacts they will have on our densifying population from the TLPI.

Beyond Kurilpa, we see major flooding in North and South East Queensland. Severe flash flooding and prolonged power failure in the Gold Coast and Scenic Rim has caused an all-too-familiar devastation for many Queenslanders. Our hearts go out to all these communities, especially those still rebuilding from previous inundation.

With recent heavy rains in Brisbane increasing general anxiety levels, we hope this newsletter is timely.

What have we achieved?

Funding

Just days before breaking for the holiday season, our submission to the Queensland Government's Flexible Funding for $100,000 was successful! Auspiced by CommunityPlus+, the funds will be used to deliver:

education workshops, such as P-CEP planning for residents with disability,
information forums, with a focus on supporting apartment flood planning,
a trigger film to support body corporates and building managers to take actions,
psychological first aid training for our members,
expansion of our website blog articles to share all our learnings.

If you’re interested in working with Resilient Kurilpa in these areas, we’d love to hear from you!

Website

In June last year, we built the Resilient Kurilpa website to share all our pioneering work with the world!

Education

We gathered our communities’ knowledge on floods to build the Kurilpa Flood Library, which will help us to facilitate workshops and events. Thanks to local crowdfunders, funding from CommunityPlus+, and a research partnership with Uncle Willie Prince, we were able to gather valuable insights from over 100 sources of local, cultural and historical knowledge.

“Collecting local flood stories showed how climate impacts are distributed unevenly in our community. Kurilpa residents and community services can strengthen resilience for all by building on our legacy of volunteering, caring for each other and Country” — Paula.

Left image: Uncle Willie Prince and Paula at the Kurilpa Derby. Right image: Melinda speaks with a local planning student.

Learning

Flood insurance affordability and availability has become a key issue for body corporates and householders as flooding poses our biggest climate risk now and in future. While some body corporates have a flood repair sinking fund, this is not feasible for many apartments.

Resilient Kurilpa are collaborating with like-minded organisations on this issue, sharing learnings via Our Insights blog and the development of a flow chart to support you to make decisions about insurance. The extent of this issue needs to be understood and measured to determine what collective steps might be undertaken to provide the right level of financial protection.

“This work is critical to help residents, particularly the growing number of people living in apartments in Kurilpa, to build financial security for their homes and units in the face of future weather extremes” — Sebastian.

In September, Melinda and Paula undertook Person-Centred Emergency Preparedness (P-CEP) Facilitator Training with the University of Sydney to assist Kurilpa residents with disability, and their support networks, to design comprehensive emergency plans. If you or someone you know is interested in creating your own emergency plan this year, please let us know so we can keep you in the loop about upcoming workshops.

Planning

One of our biggest achievements in 2023 was promoting the Template Flood Mitigation Plan for Kurilpa Apartments to guide body corporates and building managers prepare their infrastructure and residents prior, during and after flood events. We’ve received thanks and positive responses from residents locally, as well as from Kangaroo Point and Toowong. As you progress through your planning journey, we’d love to hear about your experiences or any roadblocks you encounter so we can keep advocating.

In July we worked with strata managers, BCsystems, to promote the Plan to all their members. Resilient Kurilpa offered to answer apartment-related questions upon request, based on our experiences, to build understanding among vertical communities. As 80% of dwellings on the Kurilpa Peninsula are apartments, with more on the way, our work in this area will continue in 2024.

We’ve been glad to see proactive body corporate committees getting their buildings in order, whether by relocating electrical infrastructure, exploring self-insurance, joining the Resilient Kurilpa Apartment Network Facebook group, or preparing residents using resources from our Apartment Toolkit.

Advocacy

From March to May, we collected over 600 signatures on our petition to the State Government, seeking financial support for apartment buildings from the Resilient Home Fund. Currently the common areas in apartment buildings are ineligible, despite significant costs for restoring basements, services, communal spaces and entrances.

In September, Sebastian and Melinda spoke powerfully at the Senate Select Committee on Australia’s Disaster Resilience detailing the ways our community works together to respond to floods.

“Body corporates are a volunteer group in charge of billions of dollars of property and people within flood plains. They need greater education. The body corporates are also a really important workforce in preparing their residents for what happens when it floods—and it will flood” — Sebastian.
“We're making homes more resilient. We're raising them out of the floodwater while, at the same time—as Resilient Kurilpa and West End Community Association and Kurilpa Futures talked about—we're building more homes on the floodplain. The right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing” — Melinda.

Read the public hearing transcript here.

What are our frustrations?

Evacuations

In efforts to build resilience within our community, we have encountered a number of roadblocks (pardon the pun).

Many of you will know that Hardgrave Road and Dornoch Terrace are the only flood-free road networks leading out of the Kurilpa Peninsula. Determining safe evacuation routes for residents is essential, requiring ongoing engagement with Brisbane City Council to obtain finer detail flood level data necessary to model evacuation routes for an estimated 10,000 people and vehicles.

Flood level data of half meter contours is essential to correlate with river levels, allowing us to determine when local intersections along Montague Road, Vulture Street, Melbourne Street and the Cordelia and Merivale couplet will go underwater. We have identified these in a flooded intersection map. We will persist!

Energex

Our liaison with Energex to ensure community responsive management for the disconnection of power has been nonexistent, despite direct contact with Energex and requests to political representatives at all levels, staff in the Queensland Reconstruction Authority and media interviews. (Grrr).

Flood Resilient Homes Program

Resilient Kurilpa has also been disappointed to hear about resident experiences with the Brisbane City Council’s Flood Resilient Homes Program advisory service. A number of apartment buildings have been audited where in some cases the residents thought the contractors were learning from them on the job). As yet, no apartment building has received a formal report on specific improvements for their building.

Let’s achieve more in 2024

Resilient Kurilpa are ten in number, with representatives from local community groups with strong connections to many wonderful, skilled and knowledgeable residents.

If you have time and skills (and the drive to support our growing community adapt to climate impacts) please get in contact.

Follow our journey to be informed about upcoming events with Resilient Kurilpa.

Resilient Kurilpa News—January 2024