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Mobilising communities at scale: How NSW SES integrated an emergency volunteer group into response operations
When record flooding impacted the NSW Mid North Coast in May 2025, the community mobilised quickly. The NSW SES partnered with an emergent volunteer group, Mid Coast Community Flood Response, and coordinated over 1000 people who travelled from across the region to help with the clean up. The floods devastated hundreds of homes, destroyed major transport links and severely disrupted the local agriculture industry.
Although informal volunteers have always stepped up to help in a disaster, this was the first time NSW SES publicly partnered with an emergent community group. Together, they rapidly established a joint staging area where volunteers were registered, inducted, equipped, and given basic safety training. Each volunteer team operated under an NSW SES team leader and was allocated a defined work area to ensure resources were used effectively. This integration of formal emergency services with informal volunteer groups is uncommon and required significant agility and innovation to scale up processes and systems.
Emergency volunteer groups are becoming increasingly common as communities face more frequent and severe disasters. Throughout the response, NSW SES members worked closely with community leaders and an Indigenous elder to meaningfully engage affected residents and gather local intelligence on needs and priorities. Informal volunteers were embedded into washout teams, working house to house to remove furniture, clear debris, and make homes safe.
The response on the Mid North Coast was hailed a significant success which channelled community action into a coordinated approach, returning residents to their homes as quickly as possible. The NSW SES continues to learn from these significant disasters and is enhancing systems, processes and policy to mobilise communities in the future.
This presentation will share key lessons from the response which challenged many traditional emergency management approaches and resulted in improved outcomes for the community.
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