Whether you lived in one of the flood damaged areas, or were one of the millions of people following the round-the-clock news updates, the 2011 Queensland floods were a natural disaster that will remain in the hearts and minds of Australians for many years to come.

From the last week of December 2010 until the early part of January 2011, the residents of Queensland were subjected to their second major flood in as many months. With the top soil already heavily saturated and dams full of water, the second deluge proved to be devastating to many parts of the state. The devastation has been widely reported, as has the loss of life and the spirit of the community, as it pulled together to mop up three quarters of the state which had been declared a disaster zone for the better part of a week.

When deluges of water swept first through the Lockyer Valley and other parts of Queensland including the capital city Brisbane, thousands of homes were lost and tens of thousands of people became homeless.  With this large volume of people affected, it quickly became evident that traditional news outlets and local councils were struggling to keep up with reports that could provide current and timely information both to those who needed it most, and the community at large.

Seeing an opportunity to provide Queenslanders with a single aggregated view of all news updates and government alerts Tim Miller from IT Integrity and Nathan Cross from CrossFunctional put their heads together and within a matter of hours www.qldfloods.org was born.   Very quickly, social software gurus Headshift volunteered to help the web developers and ensure the site incorporated all of the relevant social media technologies and PR agency Espresso Communications also volunteered its services to increase the site’s profile through traditional media channels.

The website became a one-stop shop for providing current news updates on the flood disaster, as well as connecting Queenslanders who wanted to offer accommodation to those who needed it the most.  Over the next seven days, Espresso played a critical role in working with the QLDFloods team to respond to the evolving communication challenges and promote the website to media, government and Queenslanders most affected by the floods. Espresso also identified the need for an open beds billeting service to be integrated into the site, which was quickly incorporated as a service on the site to offer a safe, dry bed to those in need.

This week, Espresso Communications received a Highly Commended Award in the PRIA NSW State Awards for Excellence recognising our work on the project.

Here is an overview of how the week unfolded.

The Hard Yards

For the first three days of the campaign, Espresso was heavily focused on generating media coverage about the website, particularly in the disaster area zones.  With a large team of volunteers, and some with their own media contacts, it was critical that the QLDFloods’ messaging was consistent and clear in order to cut through the busy and fast-paced media environment.  By day four, an interview with Anne Bartlett-Bragg from Headshift with CNN, as well as organic growth through social networks, prompted a tipping point with an explosion of traffic directed to the site.

Taking Stock

As of Friday, over 600 people had registered to provide accommodation and on average one person was registering on the site every two minutes. Given the site was getting about 100k hits per hour, the tech team including Rohan from OntheNet were providing 24 hour support which included constantly upgrading the resources behind the virtual private servers that supported the site.

As the QLDFloods team were unable to verify people who had registered to offer temporary accommodation, it was vital that in all the communication efforts, people were cautioned to treat each interaction as you would anyone else who you’ve met online.  Towards the end of the week, Australia had burned out from 24-hour coverage of the floods. Queensland media outlets were operating their own state specific programming so Espresso adapted to a Queensland focused media strategy.

A Whole New Ballgame

By Saturday the challenges for the qldflood.org team were entirely different. While communications efforts had been focused on attracting offers of beds and keeping information up to date, by the weekend the landscape had changed. The people that needed the accommodation offered by well-intentioned Queenslanders were for now for the most part housed in relief centres without any of their possessions – least of which their computers. Qldfloods.org which had come into existence because of its ability to harness technology, was facing its greatest challenge in that the people they most needed to speak to, didn’t have access to any.  The organisation’s focus switched from raising awareness of the site through media to working with third party organisations such as relief centres and government organisations to get directly in touch with flood victims who needed the service most.

By the following week a call centre had been established and in conjunction with established aid agencies those in need of accommodation were connected with the Queenslanders who had generously opened their homes.

Qldfloods.org – A Snapshot

• > 108,423 unique visitors and 5.39 million hits between Monday – Friday
• > More than 40 volunteers working on the site
• > Estimate of 1600 hours of volunteer time
• > 1400 people registered on the site offering 4885 beds
• > Espresso generated 40 peices of media across online, print, radio and television media.