Yes. The thing is, from last year, we learned a lot from the disaster and some of the challenges. One of the things, like you heard in my opening comments, was that we noticed there was this deficiency in regional staff. We needed to have more staff at the regional level to help the communities out, so we created five positions. We also knew that we needed more positions at headquarters, so we created those three positions.
If you look at our communications that we developed, we started our communications.... It was weekly. I think we started in April, and we started getting it out weekly to the communities, residents, governments and indigenous governments, to get them prepared: “This is what you're responsible for. This is what you need to do.”
We also helped with the disaster assistance policy. We updated it and made it more compatible with the DFAA, the federal government's disaster assistance policy.
The other thing was that we had pathfinders. Last year, we didn't have them for probably four or five weeks. This time, as soon as it was safe, we had pathfinders in. We hired three more pathfinders who had lived in the communities to live in the communities, so they were able to help that way. We learned from last year's flood. What we did, starting last year, was make our plans living documents. What that means is, every year, when we see new disasters, we try to improve on that moving forward.
I would say our plans are getting better and better, but are they perfect? No. What I mean by that is, if you think they are perfect, that's when you're waiting for the next disaster that you haven't prepared for. I think the departments and the communities have been very good at working together and enhancing their ability to address disasters, whether they're floods or forest fires.
I believe that we are better prepared, but Mother Nature always throws a curve at you that you're never prepared for. It's about the opportunity to learn.
Thank you.