Making messages effective for all: South East Queensland flood warnings and alerts

All people need to understand warnings and alerts in an emergency. People from culturally and linguistically diverse communities are more acutely at risk in emergencies and disaster events. They often rely on unofficial community translators or other people within their community or families to relay important information. Community translators sometimes do not find the original message easy to translate nor interpret into their own languages. Also, first-language English speakers may find some emergency messaging unclear. This paper reports on a project undertaken as part of the Queensland Office of Inspector-General of Emergency Management review of the February to March 2022 South East Queensland rainfall and flooding event. Seven text message warnings that were sent during the event were analysed using a linguistic technique, Clear Explicit Translatable Language. Four methods were used to make wordings easier to interpret and translate, simpler, clearer and updated. The result is a practical output and an accessible Aide-Memoire for Practitioners.