Storm brews as new BOM site blamed for ‘risking lives’
Robyn Wuth and Andrew Stafford |
Australia’s most disaster-prone state has blasted the Bureau of Meteorology’s revamped website, saying its launch could be putting lives at risk.
The Queensland government has led calls for change, asking the commonwealth to improve the “flawed” website as it enters the severe storm season.
The bureau’s new-look “modern and sleek” site launched on October 22 but quickly came under fire after savage storms left a trail of destruction across the eastern seaboard.
The $4.1 million site redesign sparked complaints it was hard to use and did not indicate storm severity after wild weather wreaked havoc across Queensland and Victoria at the weekend.
Queensland Treasurer David Janetzki has written to the commonwealth demanding changes as the clean-up continued from the storms that have triggered fears of an “insurance catastrophe”.
“The decision to make the site live on 22 October just as Queensland and Australia enter storm season can, at its best, be described as short sighted,” he wrote in his letter to federal environment minister Murray Watt.
“While at its worst, it has put the lives and safety of Queenslanders at risk.”
The weekend storms took many Queenslanders by surprise “amidst a lack of accessible information” on the bureau’s website, he wrote.
In a statement, Mr Watt said the website “is not meeting many users’ expectations” and he had raised concerns with the bureau’s acting chief executive Peter Stone in a meeting on Tuesday.
“I made clear my expectations that the BOM needed to consider this feedback and, where appropriate, adjust the website’s settings as soon as possible,” he said.
“The acting CEO confirmed that the BOM is considering this feedback and what adjustments can be made, while preserving the website’s reliability.”
The minister encouraged members of the public to continue providing feedback to the bureau and said he’d asked the agency to brief all state and territory emergency ministers on the changes.
Complaints about the new-look site include changes to storm colour coding that indicate its strength and significant areas such as Caboolture north of Brisbane disappearing as locators on the bureau’s map.
More than 5000 Queenslanders were still without power on Tuesday morning after wild weather hit at the start of the official storm season, which spans October to April.
About 11,000 claims have been received to date from Queenslanders, the Insurance Council of Australia said, with the weekend storms set to be escalated to an “Insurance Catastrophe” if numbers increase.
More wild weather is set to hit this week after record-breaking high temperatures with rain and more thunderstorms forecast for parts of Queensland and NSW.
The timing of the bureau’s revamped site launch at the start of the storm season was questioned by meteorologist Anthony Cornelius.
Weatherwatch’s managing director told AAP people should have been given more time to become accustomed to the new site after he posted a scathing assessment of it.
The bureau was approached for comment.
At its launch Mr Stone said the new website was designed in consultation with the community to make sure it delivered the benefits people want and need.
“We will continue to deliver website improvements in regular updates, based on community and customer feedback, just as we have done throughout the development phase,” he said.
AAP
