The Wood Buffalo Recovery Committee unanimously supported a recommendation to council to appoint interim Recovery Team Lead Dana Woodworth to the position permanently for the duration of the community’s recovery.
The position would be in place for as long as the Task Force portion of the recovery continues to operate in Wood Buffalo, likely for a period of up to three years.
Woodworth was originally brought in to Fort McMurray to work with REOC during the initial response to the fire in May and returned to the community to help with recovery efforts in July.
His appointment as interim leader was confirmed on August 9, when he said the full-time lead should be someone from the community.
On Wednesday evening, Woodworth said two things had come to change his mind about that original position.
“First of all, I would say, the vote of confidence from the committee and from the people I’ve been working with, that shapes my thinking,” he said. “I’m not going to presume that I can arrive, and that was my point of view, and think that I’m the man to carry this the long distance but we’ve been fairly successful as a team and we’ve been reinforced that I’m adding value so that causes someone to pause and reflect.”
The second reason, he said, was the length of time he’s spent in the community full-time.
“Since mid-May I’ve actually been in your community for 15-16 weeks, so, I don’t know at what point you become of Fort McMurray, I mean, maybe it’s 15-16 years, I’m not sure, but I’m certainly feeling I can continue to add value and I want to.”
He said if he’s asked to stay, which he has been, he will.
In addition to his role as interim leader and work required at the committee and task force level Woodworth has participated in the public engagement sessions, attended council meetings and community events, met one-on-one with residents affected by the fire and worked to gain a fulsome understanding of the impact of the disaster and of the way the community operates.
He said he is committed to seeing the community through its recovery.
“I am invested, I have invested for some time from mid-May in your community to try to help them and I continue to want to. I have some staying power and some personal resiliency. I have an apartment here, a one-bedroom down on Manning Avenue, I’ve put in the hours and I meet a lot of your community and your citizens but I don’t feel that, living here for me is not a trial or a tribulation, in fact it’s part and parcel, I believe, of doing recovery the right way.”
Woodworth believes in the importance of being immersed in the community he is serving and has done so in previous response efforts and in military campaigns. His wife continues to live in their home near Kamloops and he said they have a strong relationship that has withstood difficult tests over more than 30 years including periods of more than a year and a half apart while he was serving in the military. His daughters and grandchildren live near Edmonton.
He said there is a philosophical element to the work he is doing and the investment he feels in the recovery of this community.
“There’s a reality around recovery, there’s a reality around emergency management, actually, whether it’s response or recovery, there’s an aspect of a noble cause to this,” he said. “You often come to work and do things, whatever industry you’re in, and you feel good about it, but there’s not many careers where you can come to work and actually think that you’re truly, know for a fact that you are, helping others go from a bad place to a good place.
“It might not be a quantum leap, you know, it might not be a giant step every day, but maybe it’s incremental. But, if you stay over a long period of time, and I’ve done this before in other missions in the military frankly, sometimes over a period of six, 12, 13 months, a year and a half, you can look back and read some of your notes from the early days when you first arrived and how you oriented and what you saw and then you really see the difference as you’re leaving after a really long period of time with the people around you.
“Sometimes significant change and improvement takes a long time but there’s a noble cause aspect to recovery that, I think it drives people to continue coming to work and putting the hours and the effort to help.”
Woodworth said he hopes very much council approves his permanent appointment so he can continue to help shape the recovery of the community.
He said during the WBRC meeting he has completed the creation of an organization structure for the task force operations that will include hiring and contracting some third party sources. He also said next week’s council meeting will see a presentation on a complete program for compensation for the people whose homes were destroyed and damaged in the creation of the fire break.
Woodworth said his plan is to have a concrete answer for Waterways residents by mid-October but said he does not have control of all the pieces required to make a final decision for rebuilding in that community.
A budget for 2017 operations for the recovery task force will be presented in the coming weeks.
The WBRC voted to continue holding weekly meetings but they will now begin at 5 p.m. instead of 6 p.m.
