Disaster-hit northern NSW councils fear their communities will continue to see an inadequate response to flooding.
Richmond Valley and Byron Shire council representatives say lessons haven't been learnt when it came to disaster resilience and recovery, calling on state and federal governments to overhaul processes.
Byron Shire mayor Michael Lyon said if the rain fell again to the extent it did in 2022, many of the responses would likely repeat.
"Ill-equipped evacuation centres would be stood up on sites that local people from our hinterland and other areas can't access," Mr Lyon told a Senate inquiry on Tuesday.
"Those who access the evacuation centre may have to wade through floodwaters in the night, floating small children through the streets on boogie boards."
Mr Lyon said the community would again have to look to each other and the local council for support.
"The community will be first responders, risk assessors, technical specialists, volunteer coordinators, bearing the brunt and holding the risk."
Richmond Valley Council's local emergency management officer Angela Jones suggested setting up a register for "spontaneous volunteers" and better enabling community groups to respond to disasters.
"They've got those (community) foundations to potentially build on to manage spontaneous volunteers in the response and recovery phases of emergency management," Ms Jones said.
Mr Lyon witnessed swathes of locals converging on disaster sites and said the community could benefit from co-ordinating these volunteers through established systems.
Councils would welcome long-term funding for disaster resilience rather than waiting for governments to allocate money after the damage is done.
Byron Shire Council general manager Mark Arnold said funding tended to dry up before the next event occurred.
He said having staff in place with secure funding would enable community hubs to stay and be ready to respond.
The shire's recovery coordinator Sarah Boulle said the "response funding" model was problematic in the long term.
"It doesn't enable us to systemically support our community," she said.
Without sustained funding, communities faced the prospect of recovery officers leaving the area, taking critical skills, experience and relationships with them.
"When you have this constant turnover, the community gets frustrated," Ms Boulle said.
The councils also faced red tape in the recovery, with Richmond Valley still waiting on a backlog of claims to be approved by the state government while Byron Shire is waiting to be reimbursed for its initial flood response.
"We had to stop work and stand down contractors ... because we had a black hole in our budget, because we hadn't been reimbursed for the money," Ms Jones said.
The Senate inquiry met in the northern NSW town of Ballina.
