Approved by Local Recovery Coordinator, Kay Sullivan, correct as of 12 January 2024.

Recovery Narrative

About our community

The City of Logan is a resilient community. We will work together to assist and support those in need as we respond, recover and transition back to a business-as-usual state.

About the disaster event

A number of dangerous storm cells impacted Logan, Gold Coast and Scenic Rim on Christmas Day and Boxing Day 2023 causing extensive widespread damage and impact to the community. These impacts included power and communications outages in addition to damage to homes (dwellings and sheds), infrastructure and other property.

Logan, Gold Coast and Scenic Rim have experienced significant rainfall from New Year’s Eve to 2 January, resulting in localised flash flooding.

Local Disaster Management Group

• Local Disaster Coordinator – Mr Silvio Trinca
• The Logan Local Disaster Management Group (LDMG) moved to stand up on 28 December 2023.

Local Recovery Group

• Local Recovery Coordinator – Ms Kay Sullivan
• The Local Recovery Group (LRG) moved to stand up on 29 December 2023. The LRG has been meeting and developing the Recovery Action Plan and Implementation Plan.

Key Stakeholders

• Human-Social Chair - Ms Michelle Griffin, Deputy Chair – Mrs Elise Daw
• Economic Chair – Mr Tate Ryan, Deputy Chair - Ms Sophie Head
• Environmental Chair – Mr Edward Jones, Deputy Chair - Mr Trevor Kanapi
• Infrastructure Chair – Mr Stephen Bell, Deputy Chair - Mr Lee Busby

Recovery Objectives

1. Work alongside State Government to establish multi-agency Community Recovery Hubs to provide people with access to information, support and services.
2. Ensure relevant local services are in attendance at Community Recovery Hubs.
3. Collate all relevant information and inform impacted community where to source assistance and relevant funding.
4. Transition significantly impacted community members to outreach support services.
5. Assess, clean up and remove storm debris from parks and natural spaces to promote public safety and restore the environment within impacted areas.
6. Support residents to dispose of storm-related waste at Council’s transfer stations.
7. Coordinate resources to collect domestic waste within impacted areas.
8. Assess the damage to public infrastructure.
9. Facilitate the recovery of roads, transport, and parks and reserves infrastructure.
10. Facilitate the recovery of utility infrastructure (i.e. water, sewer, drainage, power, telecommunications etc).
11. Liaison with external agencies regarding affected road, transport, and Logan Water infrastructure.
12. Immediate response and recovery activities to ensure small producers and primary producers have access to financial services to restore/rebuild businesses.
13. Long-term economic resilience strategies are established (including continuity and recovery implementation planning).

Timeframes

Damage and Impacts

Human-Social

• 544 dwellings affected by the storm and flood affected areas (7 totally destroyed, 29 severe, 54 moderate, 35 minor and 384 no damage found).
• Significant loss of / damage to property (including vehicles, fences, and machinery).
• Sustained loss of power and telecommunications for some residents.
• Significant and extended psychosocial, mental, and financial stress related to the cumulative effect of multiple disasters in recent years.
• Other psychosocial impacts include difficulty accessing essential supplies, increased stress due to partial or complete damage of dwellings, isolation, power loss, telecommunication outages and road closures, costs to run generators etc.
• More than 2,400 residents accessed the Jimboomba and Cedar Grove Community Recovery Hubs.

Economic

• Loss of income for primary producers.
• Loss of income for peri-urban producers, and small businesses.
• Additional operation costs eg generators and fuel.
• Significant financial losses for residents (including loss of income, loss of home and contents, sheds, machinery, vehicles etc.).
• Loss of momentum in business attraction, confidence, and impact on Logan’s economic development activities.

Environment

• Across all 5 waste and recycling facilities, 1,431 self-haul customers have presented with general storm waste, (estimated to be over 200 tonnes).
• Across all 5 waste and recycling facilities, 10,996 self-haul customers have presented with green/garden waste (this includes storm green waste and general green waste). Prioritise resources for collection of general waste bins as a priority.
• Potential erosion of rivers and waterway including bank instability issues.
• Increased risk to public health through increased pests like mosquitoes.
• Loss of power to homes and businesses resulting in food safety risks.
• Loss of and injuries to wildlife due to damage to trees.
• Wide-spread damage of natural environment (including major impact on protected species and localised extinction risk) and associated psychosocial implications.
• Delays in some waste bins being collected due to storm damage blocking access to some streets.

Infrastructure

• Significant damage to trees on road reserves at risk of falling onto roads.
• Extensive road closures during event.
• Damaged/destroyed fencing, power poles and infrastructure on private properties.
• All parks except 3, are open but with a range of storm damage (green and infrastructure).
• Business as usual activities – like mowing are behind schedule due to the ongoing inclement weather and prioritisation of resources to critical recovery tasks.
• Energex infrastructure damage resulting in loss of power supply to over 6029 properties during the timeframe of the event.

Customer Service/Media

• Increase in call volumes received by our customer contact centre.
• Residents can request help through the customer contact centre, QR code113 Request for Assistance forms received though our website.
• Communication, engagement and media plan has been developed with a holistic media focus.
• Recovery website linked to our disaster dashboard is live. This includes a GIS mapped clean up schedule.