How Our Members Powered the Local Disaster Preparedness Drill

When the alarm sounded at dawn over the Parramatta Park oval, dozens of volunteers in hi-vis shirts were already moving tents, triaging mock casualties, and handing out pretend meals. The scenario, organised jointly by the local council and state emergency services, simulated a flash flood cutting off a western Sydney suburb. Among the first responders on site were familiar faces from the Rotary Mihan Members portal, who had signed up weeks earlier, packed supplies, and rehearsed their roles the night before.

Australia lives with disaster risk in a way few countries match, and the National Emergency Management Agency's resilience strategy shapes how communities train. Bushfire warnings arrive across the Adelaide Hills each summer, while cyclone alerts scroll across Northern Territory news during the long wet season. Members of Rotary Mihan have chosen to meet that reality with preparation rather than anxiety, and the latest exercise gave that choice a public shape.

The Drill's Scope and Stakes in This Country

The exercise unfolded across two hectares of public land and lasted six hours, beginning before sunrise so volunteers could rehearse the chaotic early hours of a real event. Organisers mapped flood inundation from the nearby creek onto the park, then staged a partial evacuation of a mock aged-care facility. Local media watched from a cordoned viewing area, and the council's emergency management officer logged every decision in real time.

Federal frameworks such as the Australian Disaster Resilience Strategy stress that drills must involve whole communities, not just professional agencies. State Emergency Service units in NSW, Country Fire Authority brigades in Victoria, and Queensland's Rural Fire Service all participate, but volunteers close the gaps in capacity. Members of the Rotary Mihan network filled those roles at this exercise and, in doing so, helped translate policy into practice on a suburban oval.

How Members Were Brought Together

Recruitment did not begin with the alarm. It began in late winter, when a coordinator posted a notice on the Rotary Mihan Members portal asking who could spare a Saturday. Replies came from retirees in Parramatta, university students in Penrith, and shopkeepers from Castle Hill. Each replied through the portal's directory, and the system sorted them into teams according to skills they had listed on their profiles.

Two weeks before the event, a briefing session ran at a local RSL hall. Members learned the chain of command, the location of rest stations, and how to identify roles by coloured vests. The session also rehearsed the often-overlooked step of checking on neighbours who live alone, a habit embedded in Australian suburban culture since the 2009 Black Saturday fires. By the morning of the drill, every member knew where to stand and what to do.

Skills Members Brought Before Volunteer

The teams that arrived on the oval were not random crowds. Several had completed first-aid courses through St John Ambulance Australia, and one member held a current chainsaw operators ticket, valuable when a real storm brings down branches. Others had backgrounds in logistics, accounting, or teaching, and those skills translated directly into roles as staging officers, registration clerks, and youth mentors.

A few members had lived through the Lismore floods of 2022 and brought hard-won knowledge of what a community forgets in the first panicked hours. They advised drill leaders to plan for displaced pets, prescription medication, and the simple comfort of a hot cup of tea, an Australian instinct that shows up in every relief effort from the Kimberley to Hobart. The result was an exercise that felt less like a performance and more like the first morning of a real response.

Coordination With State Emergency Services

Coordination with professional agencies defined the day. The local State Emergency Service controller set the scenario and held final authority on safety, while Rotary Mihan members ran the welfare and registration tents. Two-way channels on UHF radios kept both sides in contact, and a shared whiteboard in the command tent tracked each volunteer's location.

Joint exercises like this are quietly encouraged by state legislation, including the NSW State Emergency and Rescue Management Act, which expects councils to involve community groups in planning. The drill demonstrated how a charitable club can serve as a force multiplier, taking on tasks that paid staff lack the hours to complete. By the end of the morning, the SES controller had signed off on every handover and noted the club by name in the after-action report.

Lessons From Cyclone and Bushfire Zones

The drill drew deliberately on lessons learned in disaster-prone regions of Australia. In tropical north Queensland, where cyclone shelters open several times a decade, communities have learned to pre-pack evacuation kits for frail residents. In Victoria's high country, where bushfire warnings can change within an hour, townships run rolling drills to keep muscle memory fresh. Members of the club visited a recovery briefing in Moruya after the 2019-20 fires and returned with notes that shaped this exercise.

One practical change came straight from those notes. Members established a buddy system that pairs volunteers with isolated residents on their street, a habit common in small towns around Ballarat and Bendigo. Another change was the inclusion of a children's corner at the welfare tent, stocked with colouring books and clean water, so parents could register without juggling restless kids. These choices came from listening to survivors, not from policy documents alone.

Communication With the Wider Community

Communication before, during, and after the drill mattered as much as the actions on the ground. The club issued updates through the portal and through the local newspaper's community noticeboard, and a short newsletter ran the week before with practical advice about go-bags, evacuation routes, and household insurance. A separate article on the portal later reflected on a recent food packaging initiative and what it taught volunteers about packing under pressure.

The food packaging event described how the same volunteers sorted and sealed thousands of meals for families across western Sydney, and it set a useful precedent for the drill's logistics. Members recognised the value of labelling, batching, and quality checks, and they applied those lessons when packing mock relief kits during the exercise. Word spread through the suburb's Facebook groups, and several neighbours asked how they could join the next round.

Practical Ways Members Can Strengthen Future Drills

• Keep profile details on the portal current, including first-aid certifications and languages spoken, so organisers can build balanced teams quickly.
• Walk the evacuation route from your own street to the nearest muster point at least once a year, noting any new hazards or roadworks.
• Donate a small go-bag to the club's reserve stock, including a torch, spare phone charger, sturdy gloves, and a printed copy of emergency contacts.
• Volunteer for the welfare tent on the next drill, even with no formal training, as registration and reassurance roles need warm, calm voices.
• Invite a neighbour along on drill day, particularly anyone who lives alone or has recently moved in, and walk them through the morning's steps.

The strongest memory to carry forward is simple: preparation is a habit built one Saturday at a time. Members who turned up at dawn over Parramatta Park had done the small things in advance, and that is what allowed them to move calmly when the siren sounded. Future exercises will grow larger and more complex, yet the underlying discipline remains the same.