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Self-organising community-led emergency responses and recovery are here to stay. Increasingly frequent, more severe, longer and more widespread natural hazard events mean that the demands placed on official response and recovery agencies will outstrip capacity. Drawing on a mix of first-hand accounts from 2 community leaders and excerpts from research interviews with community members, this paper focuses on 2 linked case studies of community self-organisation; the experiences of greater Uki (Uki and surrounds) and the experiences of the Byrrill Creek community, which sits within greater Uki but has its own Community Resilience Team. These case studies serve as a useful comparison of how community selforganisation and activation can be successful, but different, in 2 locations despite encountering similar challenges during the same flood event. They show how pre-organised and decentralised structures combined with strong links with emergency services can be mobilised to support community self-efficacy. The requirement for flexible approaches to enable communities to plan and self-organise in ways that suit their contexts and compositions is an underlying theme. Accommodating these idiosyncrasies is one of many challenges facing emergency management organisations as they transition to a complex and balanced power-share with communities and identify ways to integrate with the cooperative, democratic and sometimes fragile forms of anarchy they possess. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following a series of flooding events in New South Wales and Queensland during the period January to July 2022, Natural Hazards Research Australia funded a large post-event research project to understand and learn from the experiences of those affected. A major aim of the study was to identify insights of relevance to policy and practice across emergency management with a goal of using these findings to inform a broad set of stakeholder organisations and provide an evidence base to support future improvements in community safety in future severe natural hazard events. In-depth interviews were conducted between August and October 2021 with 194 residents affected by these floods. An online survey was completed by 430 flood-affected residents during the period November 2022 to February 2023. The data collected included details of prior flood exposure, damage or losses from the floods, information and warnings received, protective actions taken, decisions and actions taken during the flood and details about the clean-up, community and other sources of support as well as flood resilient adaptations made to homes before the floods and any future (planned) adaptations and actions. Three reports are available: a summary of policy implications, a main report detailing key findings and a technical report that includes summary data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]