Natural disasters and severe weather events

• Home
• Before an event
  • Household evacuation kit
  • Household emergency kit
  • Emergency pantry list for Queensland households
  • Food for infants in emergencies
  • Emergency pantry list for breastfed infants
  • Emergency pantry list for formula-fed infants
  • Preparing infant formula in an emergency
• During an event
• Storms cyclones and flood
  • After an event - stay safe during clean-up
  • Stay safe and healthy during storm floods cyclones
  • Returning to a disaster affected house or building
  • Dealing with mould after a storm, flood or cyclone
  • Cleaning and/or removing asbestos materials
  • Ensuring safe drinking water
  • Restoring rainwater tanks affected by disasters
  • Food safety in an emergency
  • Mosquito-borne diseases after a storm/flood
  • Controlling mosquito breeding after floods
  • Black flies-a public health risk after a flood
  • Use and disposal of drugs/poisons after a disaster
  • Accessing PDS subsidised medicines
  • Health advise for emergency response workers
• Bushfire
  • During and after a fire - stay safe and healthy
  • Bushfire staying safe and healthy
  • Bushfire staying safe during clean up
  • Asbestos and fire damaged buildings
  • Bushfires and roof harvested rainwater
• Heat event
  • Before and during a heat event
  • Stay healthy in the heat
  • Heat-related illness
  • Prevent heat related illness - babies and children
  • Prevent heat related illness - seniors
• Evacuation centre resources
• Queensland public health units
• Toolbox

Evacuation centre resources

Queensland Health has developed a suite of health resources to assist local government and their partners when developing evacuation centre management strategies for natural disasters.

These resources can be used by planners and responders to assist evacuees and staff at the centres to understand potential health risks that may affect them during and after a natural disaster.

Planning for an evacuation centre needs to address many public health concerns. These include food, water, space, sanitation and hygiene requirements to:

• maintain the health of evacuees and staff 
• minimise the risk of an outbreak of a communicable disease
• maintain food safety

Food safety for staff

Food safety principles need to be followed when preparing food for people within evacuation centres. To assist staff, a booklet has been developed:

• Food safety in emergency evacuation centres (PDF 433kb)
• Preparing and storing food in evacuation centres (PDF 313kb)
• Hints for refrigerating food in evacuation centres (PDF 272kb)

Information for evacuees

These posters can be downloaded for display at evacuation centres during a natural disaster:

• Food safety in an emergency (PDF 243kb)
• How to wash hands (PDF 248kb)
• Make drinking water safe (PDF 246kb)
• Stay safe during clean up (PDF 399kb)
• Staying safe and healthy in hot weather (PDF 175kb)
• Tips for keeping food safe in extemely hot weather (PDF 212kb)
• Wash hands regularly (PDF 844kb)
• Heat-related illnesses (PDF 482kb)

Additional Resources

• Queensland Evacuation Guidelines
• NSW Health—Major Evacuation Centres: Public Health Consideration
• Red Cross Australia

 

 

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