New South Wales Flood Recovery Program
Client: NSW Public Works
The NSW Flood Recovery Program was a large-scale program to deliver government-funded support to residents and businesses following devastating flooding in February and March 2022.
The program included structural assessments of homes, construction of temporary accommodation villages, building demolitions and essential property repairs. While the focus of activity was in the Northern Rivers Region, the geographic footprint of the program covered 65 local government areas across the State.
For more information on the New South Wales Flood Recovery Program, please visit:
The Challenge
In February 2022, dozens of communities across NSW experienced severe and unprecedented flooding. Many of these communities were flooded again a month later. While flooding was widespread across the state, the Northern Rivers region was particularly impacted. Thousands of residents were displaced as entire towns and cities were effectively rendered uninhabitable. The impacts were compounded by high levels of uninsured properties, placing greater pressure on Government to respond.
The Solution
Given the unprecedented nature of the event and the sheer number of inundated properties, a new approach to delivering support to communities was required. Forge Solutions worked closely with NSW Government to develop a novel mass-property assessment program to assist property owners identify if their building was structurally safe and what essential repairs were required.
In supporting this program, Forge Solutions utilised its existing 24/7 in-house contact centre team to coordinate over 8,000 individual participants through the program. This included scheduling inspections, coordinating specialists and guiding residents through the inspection reports. To provide further support to residents, our field teams were supported by trained social workers who were able to provide vulnerable residents with additional care, before connecting them with other recovery support services.
In the early stages of the program, it quickly became known that many inundated homes were unsafe to be reoccupied. This necessitated an urgent solution to provide alternate accommodation until homes could be repaired and reoccupied. Working in close partnership with NSW Government, Forge Solutions constructed 4 temporary housing villages on sports fields and vacant land parcels. These villages provided residents with safe, warm and secure accommodation while their homes were being repaired or rebuilt. These villages included offices for social and recovery support agencies for ongoing community support.
The Outcome
In total, over 6,000 flood affected homes and businesses were inspected and the property reports issued to owners allowed them to make informed decisions about their recovery. Importantly, the detailed impact data collected enabled NSW Government to design additional recovery support programs to meet the needs of the community, including resilient retrofits and house lifting.
