Gold Coast City Council has upgraded its messaging system to residents after Christmas disaster

The Gold Coast has seen a surge in residents signing up for an emergency alert system since destructive Christmas night storms in 2023. Full details.

The Gold Coast has seen a surge in residents seeking better warnings following destructive Christmas night storms in 2023.

Sign-ups for GC Alerts have jumped by 22.3 per cent in the past year, with more than 14,000 subscribers now receiving near real-time updates via SMS.

The system, which was upgraded in 2022, sent 134,760 notifications via SMS, offering the community near real-time information to be prepared before, during and after disaster events.

Council officers said the number of notifications and community response showed concerns were growing about severe weather events.

They cautioned that there was no guarantee that 100 per cent of alerts would lead to weather events.

“The advice is to release first, and redact (later),” local disaster co-ordinator Mark Ryan told councillors at a lifestyle committee briefing on Thursday.

Storm clouds roller over Surfers Paradise. Picture: Glenn Hampson.

The push for improvements came after the devastating “derecho” storm that whipped through parts of the northern Gold Coast on Christmas Day 2023. The storm resulted in one death, widespread property damage, and power outages for nearly 90,000 people.

Residents expressed strong concerns about delays in the warning system during the event.

“We have got to the bottom of what was causing that. The community want to know, and they want to know early,” Mr Ryan said.

While there had been substantial improvement, it was important to understand that no system was “fail safe”.

Council could run the system on automatic before switching to manual with officers keeping a watch a storm events.

The updated data on its enhanced Disaster and Emergency Dashboard offered real-time, interactive community warnings, councillors were told.

Damage to a house in Helensvale following the December 25, 2023 storm. Picture: Steve Pohlner.

The system integrates data from more than 100 rainfall and river gauges and multiple government agencies, providing subscribers with detailed flood risks, road closures and evacuation guidance.

“Over the last 12 months there has been a 22.3 per cent increase in Gold Coast Alerts, reaching over 14,000 subscribers,” officers in a report wrote.

The City in 2022 launched the GC Alerts to notify the community of potential hazards via SMS and the Disaster and Emergency Dashboard.

This was in response to a February-March 2022 event, where the Emergency Alert system was “not as robust as anticipated”.

Mayor Tom Tate later said the City’s systems have improved but added: “I still don’t have the confidence in the BOM (Bureau of Meteorology) – the inaccuracy, the delays.”

Councillor Glenn Tozer. Picture: Glenn Campbell

Lifestyle committee chair Glenn Tozer on Thursday said the council had a good response to its subscriber service and wanted to “ramp it up”.

“We’ve increased the capacity of our data to feed into those alerts. Now we have some geolocation services, so when you log into the subscriber service and give your address we can provide information that is specific to your area,” he said.

Mr Tozer said the majority of the time the 24/7 system was manually operated by council officers.

“There is a very small period of time where sometimes we automate the service. We think it is better to let people to know with an automated message then redact that message if there are new different variables that come out,” he said.

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