Friday’s city emergency
involving a motor vehicle being driven on crowded pathways ended with
disastrous consequences including loss of life. It has raised a number of
observations and questions about how similar situations can be handled.
Firstly, let’s acknowledge
the wonderful therapeutic value of the Queen Vic Market family. Friday’s events
were incredibly traumatic and experts have encouraged the population to seek
advice on how to handle their response.
Thousands of informal conversations
have taken place at QVM since Friday afternoon involving traders, staff,
management and customers as we worked through issues, attempted to rationalise
reactions and essentially vented our fears and concerns while expressing great
sympathy for those directly involved. It is good to have friends.
Much has been made of the QVM
office shut-down during the city emergency. Apparently the offices in Deli Lane
and at F1 were closed until the city offender was apprehended. Cleaning staff
were stood-down by their employer but the public and traders were left to their
own devices. Could more have been done?
The office shut-down was
echoed across the city as businesses, particularly in Bourke, Queen, Elizabeth
and William streets were closed, so QVM’s response was understandable. How do
you extend that to an open market? Any public announcement would almost
certainly have led to panic. It should be noted that the time between the
driver doing donuts outside Flinders Street station and being shot and
apprehended in William St. was less than 10 minutes. The emergency was over
fairly quickly.
QVM Management has used mass
SMS communication with traders before and perhaps an SMS to traders as soon as
the offender was caught could have helped.
QVM is a public area but
there are traffic control options that could be considered when faced with a
rogue driver. Bollards could be placed at major entries like Therry St.,
Victoria St. and Queen Street. In fact the questions needs to be asked why
shouldn’t we have bollards in place in every aisle and lane way during normal
trading times as protection from this sort of behaviour? Peel St. gives
multiple vehicle entry points to crowded pedestrian areas.
There is much to consider and
no doubt there will be a complete review of the QVM response to this event. In
the meantime the Victorian Government has set up a hotline to assist those
seeking further counselling (tel:1800226226) and
they have launched a public appeal to assist the relatives of those who lost
their lives in the tragedy. Details of how you can make donations are available
here - http://www.vic.gov.au/bourkestreet.html
COMMENTS:23/01/2017 06:54:59 Bourke St "To say Managements actions on Friday were disappointing is an understatement.!! To go into lock down and leave traders to work it out for themselves is as bad as the captain of a ship leaving while it sinks... Yes, it was only 10mins but what would have happened if had driven up Queen st ?Who would have been any wiser? It only went up on the internet after the fact. For management to go into lockdown, meant someone must have notified before that. My Question is.
Who made the call? Who thought it was best to take all the staff off site and leave the traders and customers to fend for themselves?Traders will always have each others back, I left wondering about if the same can be said for management. Oh and please don't spin this that we didn't want to panic customers... The moment it was decided to go into lockdown, someone should have send sms's to traders making them aware of the situation. We too have a responsibility to make sure our staff are safe ... " Drita Mclennan
