The provision of relevant information and communication to communities during a high-hazard event remains a consistent challenge for the emergency management sector. While there is diversity of information sources and mechanisms to disseminate content to the public, research indicates there is still an unmet demand for timely, local, highly specific hazard information. Post-disaster surveys conducted following 3 natural hazard events in north Queensland between 2019 and 2024 show that while respondents accessed a wide variety of information sources and were generally satisfied with the quality of information, there were still several perceived gaps. During these hazard events, community members expected to readily access detailed, consistent and localised information to reduce uncertainty and assist decision-making. Telecommunications and power network failures caused by the hazards revealed over reliance on information technology as the primary source of communication for many households. Lessons learnt from such experiences can improve our understanding and practical approaches in future events.
King et al. (Tue,) studied this question.