In this edition of Simon Says we have a look at the natural disaster and severe weather outlook for 2018.  The Bureau of Meteorology’s (BOM) outlook for severe weather is: elevated bushfire potential; increased risk of heatwaves; an average tropical cyclone season likely; widespread flooding less likely; and a normal risk of severe thunderstorms.

Planning the emergency response to and mitigation strategies for natural disasters is an ongoing business that happens at the federal, state and local levels. University facilities can often find themselves temporally and spatially downstream of historically poor planning decisions leading to difficult or expensive disaster mitigation solutions. Bearing this in mind, we have a quick look at some of the assessment techniques and cost justification strategies we can employ in the natural disaster planning and mitigation process.

So, what does 2018 hold for us on the natural disaster front; lets quickly run through the predictions for each category, starting with the cyclone and storm outlook.