Leanne Barnes is General Manager of Bega Valley Shire Council in NSW, stretching from the Victorian border to Bermagui and covering picturesque coastal, mountain and farming communities.

Coronavirus followed several significant disasters in our region, including an east-coast low that smashed us in 2016, bushfires in Tathra and Yankees Gap in 2018, then the deadly blazes last summer that saw lives lost, homes and farms destroyed and businesses decimated and forced some residents to evacuate multiple times. We are well across disaster recover scenarios, but nothing quite compares to this year.

During the recent fires, we supported the Emergency Operations Centre and Rural Fire Service more closely due to significant impacts on those services across the state and performed more evacuation work than we normally would as a council. We helped many of the 80,000 tourists in our shire to leave safely; we supported the orderly evacuation up Brown Mountain by Victorians returning home via Canberra; Mallacoota evacuees were stuck here, too; and we had to ensure resources like food and fuel could get through. We were cut off to the North, South and West.

In January we established a Recovery, Rebuilding and Resilience project team and appointed external staff, utilised staff from other NSW Council’s generously offered and seconded staff to help the community move forward from the fires, in conjunction with local and regional recovery committees. With COVID-19 also impacting, it’s become an integrated approach and organisational recovery is a key part of our plans. We will never be the same as we were in December 2019, so let’s reflect on the process and reset for the future. What are all the good things we’ve had to do, that we should continue doing?

It was difficult at times being unable to support people face-to-face because of COVID isolation. Some staff lost properties in the fires, but how do you show them you are really listening? That’s been better since restrictions have eased.

After any disaster, community-led recovery is critical and local government is the lead agency in that space – we are here before, during and well after the events and helping people prepare, show resilience throughout and then work through the recovery phase is absolutely core business for us.

Leanne Barnes
General Manager
Bega Valley Shire Council