SES headquarters would fail in serious natural disaster, leaked internal report shows

COMMUNITY safety is being jeopardised because the State Emergency Service does not have enough personnel to deal with major natural disasters, a leaked report reveals.

• The fallout after the SA blackout

COMMUNITY safety is being jeopardised because the State Emergency Service does not have enough personnel to deal with major natural disasters, a leaked report reveals.

The damning document also states the organisation’s headquarters are not equipped to handle severe storms and floods and “it is only a matter of time before it totally fails during a significant event”.

The report into the SES response to the statewide blackout on September 28 last year and the week of wild weather that followed concedes a “lack of human resources” cripples the organisation during serious incidents.

“While the SA SES has sufficient human resources to manage the day-to-day operations of the organisation, sustained and re-occurring severe weather and flooding events, such as experienced during 2016, places unsustainable and unmanageable pressures on the organisation, in particular its people, both staff and volunteers,” it read.

The report stated this pressure meant the organisation was unable to recover after a significant event and prepare for the next one.

Opposition emergency services spokesman Stephan Knoll described the findings as “alarming”.

“It’s basically saying that a the point at which we need these services the most, they’re not going to be there,” he said.

The document further reveals the SES State Control Centre, on Waymouth St in the city, “represents a significant risk to the community of South Australia”.

The report found the building was “totally inadequate and is severely compromised in terms of providing the space and functionality required of a state control centre”.

“During the power outage, the uninterrupted power supply (UPS) and backup generator only maintained power to 14 of the essential workstations in the SCC,” it read.

“As a result, 50 per cent of the computers in the SCC were not operational when needed most.”

Mr Picton said he had not been made aware of the report but he would read the document.

“I’ll talk to the SES about that but obviously they’re working internally to try and improve their response to such an event as it may occur in the future,” he said.

“In 2017/18 an additional $500,000 per annum was provided to SES by the government and additional staff will be engaged to assist with emergency management planning and maintenance of operational policies and procedures.

“The SES is also engaging a number of fixed term project staff to accelerate work to update plans, doctrine, policies and procedures.”

Mr Picton said the Government was “continuing to look at ... the operational future of the SES and CFS on that site”.

“They’ve been based there a long time but there are obviously some operational issues and that’s something I’m working with the chiefs on at the moment,” he said.

The SES declined to comment.