Maitland’s flood history will hit smartphones today as a way to educate and enthral a new generation.
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The app will enable self-guided tours of the courthouse precinct – one of the hardest hit areas during the 1955 flood.
Instigators of the idea, the Hunter-Central Rivers Catchment Management Authority, will unveil the iPhone and android app at the Belmore Hotel.
“We’ve found our audience has tended to be older so the app is a way of moving with the times and introducing the story to a younger generation,” app narrator and historian Peter Bogan said.
“Flood education is a continual process using emerging technologies.”
Hunter-Central Rivers CMA chairwoman Susan Hook will launch the app with an audience of flood survivors and dignitaries including the mayor of Maitland Cr Peter Blackmore.
NSW SES community engagement co-ordinator Amanda Hyde, who helped develop the project, said the app was educational but far from boring.
“One of the worst breaks in the Hunter River was behind the Maitland Court House,” she said.
Ninety people spent a night trapped in the courthouse guiding debris through one window and out another to save the building from destruction.
The app – called Flood Walk – uses information from Mr Bogan’s guided tours and has been six months in the making.
“Encouraging home owners back into Maitland means our flood education needs to be all the more targeted,” Mr Bogan said.
The app will also be marketed to the tourism industry.
# Some images taken by Jim Lucy, digitised by David Schiffer.
