The Local Disaster Management Group, which I chair, held its debrief last week. This group includes police, SES, reps from the airport and Ports North, ambos, fire and rescue, Red Cross, Department of Communities and public health.

We were all pleased with how seriously the people of the region took the warnings to prepare and then to evacuate when the cyclone was heading for Cairns.

There's much that we can learn from the event: we need more user friendly storm surge maps; people want an evacuation place where they can bring their pets; back-up officers are needed who can relieve the key personnel; we need to identify evacuation centre personnel who don't have their own families to look after; the availability of lists of items to take to an evacuation centre will assist; can we map areas of the region that are most likely to have buildings with asbestos; and so on.