Nobody Talks About Recovery Like Her | Meet BC's Recovery specialist Deb Borsos, and host Tim Conrad

Tim Conrad (timsbits) (00:22)
Don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you got till it's gone? Joni Mitchell wrote those words after looking out her Hawaii hotel room to gorgeous mountains in the distance only to see a giant parking lot sprawling below her.

In March 2026, that parking lot may have been flooded by 13 to 26 centimeters of rain, which caused over $1 billion in damages. The latest in a series of disasters to strike the islands, including wildfires, lava flows, rain and wind storms.

Every recovery is unique to the community, the incident, resources and leadership available and timing. What works in urban and rural Hawaii may not work in the Northern Territory of Australia.

Recovery is more than words. It is listening, collaborating, hard work, connecting, creating, and keeping promises. It's falling seven times and standing up eight. well, is finished piece of new art created over a once broken and destroyed canvas. Our guest for this episode,

is a bit of a legend in this part of the world, known for her ability to navigate the challenges and changes we inevitably face when recovering from emergencies.

Deb Borsos is a recovery operations specialist based in British Columbia's Kootenay region and has decades of experience in community recovery.

I'm your host, Tim Conrad. Welcome to the Wildfire's Floods and Chaos Communications podcast with guest Deb Borsos.

Tim Conrad (timsbits) (01:47)
you have said to me that the weak links in recovery are communications, so please tell me more.

Deb (01:53)
Well, weak links throughout emergency management can be communications in recovery, which is what I've worked in for a number of years now. There's various aspects to it. One is making sure you listen correctly and don't bring someone something they didn't ask for. One is sharing information appropriately and currently in.

when it is available instead of having to wait. For instance, if you are working in a situation where you're working for a government or another agency and they have to approve information that has come up, that would be really good for your community to know.

It may take two or three days and it may be totally irrelevant by the time you get it back. So it's a tricky thing to do. I realize there's liability. I realize that they have to get things approved, but who are you serving? The community is who you serve and you should try and be as responsive as you can and honest and accurate whenever you can with information.

Tim Conrad (timsbits) (02:51)
And so do have any suggestions on that? what's something that people could do to maybe help that out?

Deb (02:57)
Well, this is gonna sound rather like going rogue, but I did have an opportunity. Two summers ago, we had a fire in our community and because of my background and because I'm also on the local fire crew, we have developed a relationship over the last 20 years with BC Wildfire and it went really well. And we were allowed our crew, I'm a dispatcher on the crew, we were allowed to stay in and work with them during the day.

Tim Conrad (timsbits) (03:15)
Mm-hmm.

Deb (03:22)
And previous to that, have in when working with other communities around the province, I have

gone in and developed an email list for the community just of those affected and daily sent out timely emails saying here's a photo of what's going on, here's the latest updates we have, this is what we know about your houses. Now as I say we had this unusual opportunity where we could work inside so I was able to actually send that out daily to people which I believe they appreciated along with the photos of what it looked

like because they were all evacuated so they didn't know what was going on and they really wanted to know of course. So that's one way of doing it is be accurate, have a list of your community members, have someone who is trusted and can speak to the officials who are putting stuff out. I also included regional district and provincial updates in my updates when I had them and I cut and pasted. I didn't change a word. There has to be that trust right.

Tim Conrad (timsbits) (04:03)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Deb (04:26)
But within that, think the community appreciated getting those daily updates and waited for them. And I think it was helpful.

Tim Conrad (timsbits) (04:32)
Yeah.

Yeah. And I often say like, we've been talking about, you know, kind of more response type communications and people might be like, well that's response, not recovery. And here's an interesting thing that I believe that from my years of doing it is that recovery begins during response. Would you agree with that?

Deb (04:52)
I absolutely agree with it and a friend of mine who I worked with for many years had a

slide presentation that he would do in the first picture was of after a large accident that had happened, a woman walking away with her cell phone starting to phone people, he said, recovery starts right there. Right? That's recovery. That's self-recovery, which is very good. And yes, absolutely, you have to be aware of it. And it is not a little thing after the fact. It's the bigger, longer thing that can go on for years, as we know.

Tim Conrad (timsbits) (05:20)
Yeah, absolutely.

Deb (05:20)
⁓ So it

needs to start as soon as possible. And when I've had opportunity before to work in emergency operation centers during the response to capture as much of the history of what the event is and what the community is so that when recovery starts, you are informed and you don't go in blind and have to start asking these poor people that have been traumatized, what happened? It's like you've got a lot already.

Tim Conrad (timsbits) (05:43)
Yep. Yeah,

absolutely. That's something that we have done with our communications teams is we will build a timeline. We start building that immediately of the entire emergency so that we have a step by step of what happened. And it's incredibly handy. You'll see that in the Shuswap emergency report for the 2023 wildfires. We have a breakdown of the entire.

within their, I believe the Columbia Shuswap Regional District had an annual report as well, and it broke everything down step by step. And it's super handy when you're doing that recovery exercise, right? Yeah, yeah. So there seems to be too much focus on getting communications made for those who work in organizations to approve, get their approval, right? And there's...

Deb (06:05)
great.

sure is. Yep.

Tim Conrad (timsbits) (06:26)
less focus on the people they are working for. you know, in a short way of saying it, it's people pleasing. And the urgency for information doesn't leave the organization. That approach becomes catastrophic for some disasters and recoveries then from them. So what do you think about that?

Deb (06:47)
Yeah, think transparency is a very good thing. And again, I recognize liability on the side of the organizations having to approve it and make sure it sounds right and etc. etc. But people need to know they need to have information so that in their heads, they can move forward. One.

One of my first jobs that I did was rare in that after two years of research into what caused this event, there was no blame. couldn't, they said maybe it was climate change. Well, it probably was climate change, but there was no need to blame. And people that are affected need to say, that's why that happened. Okay, I can move on.

but if you don't know why it happened or who did it, it's very difficult to get your life moving forward. And so just giving information as it goes, say, well, we know this and we know this, I think that would be very beneficial to communities if that were shared more broadly at the time.

Tim Conrad (timsbits) (07:47)
Yeah, absolutely. And it is important for those pieces of information to get out there. We're recording this on March 4th and just yesterday the BC government announced that they're going to do a coroner's inquiry into the Tumbler Ridge shooting. And so that coroner's inquiry is going to put together a bit of what happened leading up to that tragic event. so that's the type of thing that we would be wanting to look at.

Deb (08:11)
Absolutely, yep, it can only benefit people in the future and when events are happening and in the recovery, you say, having that information is very helpful. It's helpful for people's healing, you know, just to feel like they're more part of it because it is their community. So, yeah.

Tim Conrad (timsbits) (08:24)
Yeah, that's right.

Yeah. Yeah.

And that's what a good point there. It's their community. And we have to remember that that, um, tons of responders, tons of recovery groups and things, they show up and they arrive when a disaster happens. And I always, always, always one of the things, things you'll hear from me as I welcome people in is remember your guest in this community and, um, please treat it that way. Right. This is their community and please don't come in and tell them how to do things. And, um,

boss them around, it's not a good thing, right?

Deb (09:01)
Yeah, and I've recently, well in the last few years come to see in particular that if you are working as a come from away, shall we say, ⁓ with a community.

Tim Conrad (timsbits) (09:11)
Yeah

Deb (09:14)
being able to engage and speak with them and build relationships and say, hey, know, is there someone in your community that you think would be good at this? And then working with them, mentoring them, doing anything to help them so that they remain there because they are part of the community. And sometimes that can be dangerous. It depends on, you know, it depends on where the person stands, so to speak in the community. But oftentimes if you go and ask three or four or five

people who would be a good person to do this job for you long term, you'll get the same answer. You'll get people saying, you should talk to so and so, right? The first job I ever did, I live 10 kilometres away from an affected community and that worked beautifully. I knew the people, but I was not part of the community. So sometimes it will work against you to have someone right in the community, but a neighbouring close by. ⁓

Tim Conrad (timsbits) (10:04)
Yes.

Deb (10:05)
is very helpful to be from. Because you understand the nature of the region, etc. It helps.

Tim Conrad (timsbits) (10:11)
Yeah,

yeah, I'm a big believer that because I well it shows in the results you can look around British Columbia and look at communities that are in recovery. Those that are led by a corporation from outside the province in recovery are not doing as well. Just plain and simple, you can look at it and it's very easy to see those that are being led by someone that's in or nearby the community as a recovery manager doing extremely well in most cases. So it's a night and day and I'm a big believer in that so.

So do you think when it comes to communications we're afraid to share hard truths after a disaster? We do it a lot during the disaster, but after the disaster are we a little afraid?

Deb (10:49)
I think it's part of human nature if you're working in recovery in particular, you don't want to say no to anyone who's just had their life turned upside down. But they're not.

generally delicate little butterflies and they can take it and they want the truth because it's their recovery it's not yours right and so you need to find ways to be honest and to definitely manage expectations just say here's what I can do and here's what i can't and

If you're really having a struggle with the things I can't do, let me know and I can help maybe find someone else who can do something for you. But do not promise them something and then not give it. That is terrible.

Tim Conrad (timsbits) (11:30)
Yeah. yeah. Awful, awful

thing. you just, you have to imagine that through emergencies, are promised or believe they are promised lots of different things that do not happen. And there's lots of expectations set throughout emergencies. And unfortunately, they don't happen. Right? Yeah.

Deb (11:46)
Yes, don't get me going. ⁓

I'm a bit torn. I understand how it helps some people when a politician flies in on a $5,000 helicopter flight to say, we'll be helping you every step of the way. And I'm sure they truly mean it. But what that involves isn't necessarily what it means to the people hearing it. And I have often said in the past, why don't you take the $5,000 and give it to the community and they'll...

They'll use it really well.

Tim Conrad (timsbits) (12:16)
Yes, yeah, yeah,

yeah, absolutely. I could talk about politicians showing up at emergencies and a whole other podcast, so I won't do that today. I will say, I think we need to know that you can't spell communications without community. ⁓ And that's a thing we always have to keep in mind.

Deb (12:30)
Bye.

Absolutely. The community has to be part of it. And we've learned over the last, I want to say, 10 years since 2017, particularly when one after another after another, you know, we've had large events and gradually it's becoming better and communities are more involved. It's still...

I mean, it's a culture that's been in place for decades and decades. They will come and save us. Well, they are trained and they know what they are doing, but it is your...

place you live and you have to have a say in where it goes from there and how and in preparedness for it as well. know, human nature being what it is, people are mostly going to say that won't happen to me, why should I prepare? Well, unfortunately we're getting more and more examples of why you should prepare and communities are preparing and doing better, but capacity once again comes into it.

Tim Conrad (timsbits) (13:23)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's it. Community is gonna be there at the beginning and they're gonna be there at the end, right? So, and so.

Deb (13:30)
Yeah, one thing I like

to do, I haven't done it lately, but over the years that I worked in recovery, that's the other thing is the 15 minutes of fame, right? So a couple of years ago, two things, a couple of years ago, someone came up to me on the street in the village near to where we live. And we were talking about the...

10, 12 years ago when there was a large event in the area and they said, I thought all those people left. I didn't know there was anyone left in the community and I'm like well yeah they're still there. They're just not in the news anymore right? They're still going on with their lives as one

Deb (14:04)
so the other thing about communications that I've found is useful and helpful in new events that I work on is I follow up with some of the communities I've worked with years previously because recovery gets to a certain point and then either the community wants to just forget about it and go on with their life, but generally they're still recovering, they're still changing, they're still improving hopefully. And you can learn.

Tim Conrad (timsbits) (14:29)
Mm-hmm.

Deb (14:30)
after a while because you're not immediately going in and saying what worked and what didn't. You can go back a few years later and say do you want to talk about this and just tell me in hindsight how would you do things differently or how would you work differently with the government or the other agencies that come in what would you suggest to them and it works really well when time a lot of water goes under the bridge and you can they can reflect on it better and you can learn from it and you can take it to the next place you go and work.

Tim Conrad (timsbits) (15:35)
you've done some work in Australia. Tell us about it.

Deb (15:38)
Australia. Well, I do have family connections and I've been there a number of times over the years, but I have also...

for a number of years now have been following what is being done in Australia in terms of community leading their own recovery. And there's some excellent examples there of small communities. I mean you have an entire continent and some communities are literally a thousand kilometers away from any first responder. So they need to be more independent. We are similar but different. They're very much independent, particularly in the rural areas, and they'll just get her done, right? They'll get out there

and figure it out. And as with any small community, there's always the maneuvering around how are going to set this up? How are we going to, you know, figure things out? But generally, what I've seen is they've done a very good job. There's now a group which is attached to the work that I've done in Australia, twice now in 2024 and 2020.

23 and 25. Anyway, I've been to two conferences there. By the way, they have a national conference on resiliency and recovery. Just saying Canada. And it's fantastic. It's an amazing conference. So I went to Brisbane the first time where I met a group that was just starting called DisasterWise.

Tim Conrad (timsbits) (16:44)
Wow.

Deb (16:53)
and stayed in touch with them and joined their monthly calls. It was in the evening for me and the next afternoon for them, but that it doesn't matter. Good group and it's literally for grassroots and community members to call in and say, hey, we did this in the fire that we had, but now we've got this. Has anyone got ideas? And someone from across the country who was calling in would say, well, try this or call this person. It's a really interesting experiment and they've

grown, they're now a society and I applaud them because they are the voice for the communities that don't have elected government, right, the smaller rural and remote communities. And so they're just getting started, but I think they'll do well. So I'm part of that. I'm on one of their working committees still. And

Tim Conrad (timsbits) (17:32)
Mm-hmm.

Deb (17:41)
I've worked, one conference was on the East Coast, one was on the West Coast in Perth, the most recent being the one in Perth, where I was speaking with my, was volunteering in their booth and helping them. And my booth mate.

was telling me that he has been to a lot of these conferences and he's been amazed in Perth on the west coast, which is less populated, has more people that just get out there and do things, has one major large urban centre. And on the east coast, a lot more urban, a lot more population, more large centres, etc. And the previous year he had been to one in Sydney, a conference.

and he said it's like night and day. mean our booth was never empty. We had people coming to us saying this is fantastic, including first responders, the police, everybody.

residents, community members, local government, were all in there talking with us about saying this is a fantastic idea. And he said this was the opposite to what happened in Sydney the year before. We had less people because it seems like it's far more regulated and it's more top down. I guess that's why. But he was quite pleased at the difference. there's proof, there's an example that if you just offer the tools to

people and help them say, you go. How can you best use them for yourself instead of always regulating? Then sometimes that will work better.

Tim Conrad (timsbits) (19:03)
Yeah, absolutely. Recovery is tough, right? It's extremely tough. Response has loads of resources, loads of people coming in, responders, everything, right? And everybody goes home and recovery starts. yeah, right? It is, right? it's, ⁓ and when you...

Deb (19:18)
Yeah, and it's like hello. Forget about us. Yeah.

Tim Conrad (timsbits) (19:28)
I do really, you've touched on a few times already, it's community, it has to be from community because they're the ones that are there from there forward still, just as they were before and they will be going into the future. So, ⁓ and it's their community that they're building again. ⁓ so.

Deb (19:41)
Yeah.

Yeah,

and I think part of that is perhaps if there was more clarity of communication from the government saying, here's what's gonna happen. We will come in and this is what we can offer you and these are the fundings and these are the grants and these are the this and the that and different ministries will come and help you with various things, but it is up to you to carry it forward.

and we won't be here forever. And that's the part they never say. What they say is the opposite. Usually in TV bites, which is we'll be here forever for you. Sorry, don't say that. That's it. They should be encouraging, you know, you guys are the ones that know best. How can we help you? Right. But I have to say that because of the frequency of events that are happening now,

Tim Conrad (timsbits) (20:12)
Yeah. Yeah.

Deb (20:29)
It's not all the government's fault. mean, they can only respond to so much, but they could be more clear at the outset and say, you know, this is a time limited offer here. We'll help you when we can.

Tim Conrad (timsbits) (20:43)
Yeah. Yeah. It's, this is a good time to bring up two, phrases that I, I'm curious to get your thoughts on, build back better and we'll be there with you every step of the way.

Deb (20:54)
Build back better. Build back better. Well, that's, yeah, I've turned that one over in my mind a few times, depending on which community I've been working in. It's like, how are they going to do that? If they've done planning ahead of time, maybe they do know.

Tim Conrad (timsbits) (20:55)
Any thoughts?

Deb (21:09)
that they had a conversation, for instance, in a small town said, well, we have extra pieces of land. the village hall burns down, we could put it right there by the river where there's power and there's water and there's whatnot. And we could actually do that. That would be building back better. But I don't know a whole lot of communities that have had the chance to do that, right? Hopefully more will. And building back better maybe.

I mean, it's going to mean something different to every single community and every single resident. It's like they'll all have really good, build back better. Are you going to give us the funds to do that? Because usually these days that goes into millions, if not billions. mean, you know, one place that has built back better and it's been through their total persistence and stubbornness. And I applaud them is

Tim Conrad (timsbits) (21:45)
Yeah.

Deb (21:54)
Merritt, they had an amazing time in their flood and they've done an amazing amount and they still have more to do. But I was working with them after the floods in the 2021 floods and they've persisted and persisted and persisted and they've got a lot done and I think that's really great. And also it's basically the squeaky wheel like Princeton as well. Mayor Spencer Coyne and the folks there.

Tim Conrad (timsbits) (21:55)
All right, yep. Yeah.

Deb (22:21)
He speaks up at every every chance he can and go for it. Do it because you have to.

Tim Conrad (timsbits) (22:27)
Yeah, yeah, you have to and that begins in response. You have a big audience during response. That's your time to start advocating for that support and funding that you're gonna need in the future. And I really emphasize that with different local governments and First Nations that I'm working with. It's like, this is a very short window that you have where you have all of the attention on you, take advantage of it. so.

Deb (22:32)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. And there are tweaks

that when I worked for the province did start to happen, wasn't I? I didn't make it happen, but I was happy to see it. In which they were told again and again, you can't.

You can't say there's a funding window and we know that you've had a disastrous event and you've got two weeks to put in an application. Well, with people who have eyes as big as saucers and can't think their way out of a bag because they've just had their lives turned upside down, they're not going to sit down and go, great, we'll write a really comprehensive grant for half a million dollars because we need it for this. So the government has recognized that and they have extended, had rolling intakes on grants and other funders have done that also, which is really

Tim Conrad (timsbits) (23:16)
Mm-hmm.

Deb (23:27)
good to know because taking that pressure off is very helpful for particularly smaller communities.

Tim Conrad (timsbits) (23:33)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So our recovery is based on an invisible line for where a municipality is. Is that the same in Australia based on your experience?

Deb (23:44)
That's something that I was turning over, chewing over, and I believe that the shires there, the regional districts equal sort of shires I believe they have a bit more oversight of the towns and municipalities within their shire than ours do, but I haven't confirmed that. I had a call in to speak with a friend to ask them about that because they work in a shire, I didn't get a reply back before we're speaking here today.

Tim Conrad (timsbits) (24:11)
Mm-hmm.

Deb (24:11)
They do do a lot. I know a lot of recovery projects and people that have been based out of the shires. They're helping the community and encouraging the communities to take things on, but working with them a lot more. It depends. It's like regional districts. It depends on the regional district as to how well or not it will work. I did have a conversation with a friend here about a year ago. Was asking if she knew about

any unincorporated communities within regional districts that were sort of leading their own recovery and had plans and everything and and sort of the answer that came back was well regional districts don't recognize unincorporated communities because they're supposed to be part of the regional district but I think that is something that could be deeply explored because smaller communities coming from one of 120 people

Tim Conrad (timsbits) (25:00)
Mm-hmm.

Deb (25:01)
have many, many, many skills and history and experience that they can put to good use in directing their own well, preparedness for one thing, i.e. through fire smart and things, ⁓ but recovery after the fact and having more direction in what they do.

Tim Conrad (timsbits) (25:14)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. yeah, that's it. Incorporation. I don't think a lot of people realize what, how that came to be, but municipalities got incorporated for different reasons and often out of need. So recent episode that I had with the Bridgewater Fire Department chiefs, that town became incorporated in 1899 because their downtown burnt down. So they had a disaster and it required that they had to change things and

get a tax base in place in order to support staying sustainable in the future, right? So, ⁓ and yeah, so it's, there's lots of different reasons, but it doesn't mean that the community is weak by any means, right? It's not at all. I have often found those small communities out there, they're very tight. They're extremely tight. 120 people, you take 120 people in a closed setting in a city, I guarantee you that most of them don't know each other, you know?

Deb (25:52)
Yeah.

Nothing.

Tim Conrad (timsbits) (26:13)
So that's the difference.

Deb (26:13)
Yeah, yeah, it's very different,

the urban to the rural. And in some cases, I think I have changed my mind on this because I'd say 99 % of the work that I've done is rural and remote smaller communities, but they have worked a little bit in urban settings. And sometimes, depending on the city, neighborhoods work very well as a small community. And more and more.

Tim Conrad (timsbits) (26:19)
you

Deb (26:35)
neighbourhoods are doing that for themselves because they realize, you know, eventually the critical mass will be that there won't be enough responders to respond to all these events and they'll have to do something. New Zealand has got a really good example of neighbourhood hubs and they do that really well, right, and some of that has come over here. It hasn't got caught on completely but it's still good idea.

Tim Conrad (timsbits) (26:56)
Yeah. Yeah.

And those neighborhood hubs were absolutely amazing for them during the pandemic. Like so critical to them. I watched those in action and it was just, wow, watching that happen. was like, that is incredible. And yeah, lots of good things happening over in that part of the world. I want to know what you learned about their communications.

Deb (27:02)
Mm-hmm. Absolutely. Yep.

Yeah.

Well, when working with DisasterWise and doing these monthly calls, several times we had a couple of members call in who are connected to internal, like they've built their own radio communication system just regionally. So a couple of them have done that and they sound fantastic and we haven't had a chance to get back and explore that further with them. But doing that for themselves is

absolutely so important, I mean, to have it locally and to train people how to use radios and to train and to have an understanding of what the communications will be. I mean, other types of communications they do as we do over here in small communities, they pin something up at the notice board. They all have halls, they all have country halls and it's used for many, many, many things. The face-to-face I see

I would say that there's much more face-to-face communication and gathering there, perhaps than here, which is very effective ⁓ in terms of planning and just the support for each other, just to have get-togethers, know, weekly dinners or whatnot. The in-person will never be beat by anything in

Tim Conrad (timsbits) (28:12)
Yep, it is.

that's it, right?

Deb (28:25)
I think it's more, there's a lot of rural communities there and they very much depend on each other and they very much have each other's backs. so that the gathering together, I've seen watching online, not necessarily talking to all of them, but watching a lot of funding that has gone.

to rebuilding those key buildings, those halls, those, not necessarily churches, interestingly enough, community halls. That's it, that's the baseline, right? And in some places you won't have cell phone service or you won't, know. Hopefully they've mostly got internet where they are now, but it wouldn't surprise me if they didn't. It's huge, huge country.

Tim Conrad (timsbits) (28:47)
Yeah, Mm-hmm. Yep. Yep.

Yeah, interesting. it's, yeah, so lots of in-person and getting out there and talking to people. I found working with the Aussies that that's, you know, extremely relationship-based. ⁓ And they had no hesitation ever going, their incident commanders into a public meeting where they had to speak in front of a Canadian audience. And yeah, really quite good at...

Deb (29:18)
Yes.

Yeah.

Tim Conrad (timsbits) (29:30)
communicating and sharing that information that's sometimes pretty complex, And the reality is you don't know what's going to happen. you're trying to explain different possibilities. yeah.

Deb (29:30)
sharing this and communicating.

Yeah.

Yeah, we had a fantastic,

just before we were evacuated in our town, we had a fantastic community meeting. And I have to say of all the years of living in this little community and going to meetings where there are

sometimes contentious discussion topics and many questions fired at the poor person that's trying to answer them. This meeting was amazing because the incident commander had everything answered. I don't remember a single question coming at him after he just spoke. He said, I know this and this and this. And he ended by saying, he ended by saying, and I think you've got a good three or four days ahead of you before we have to even think about evacuating. And three hours later, we were heading out of town.

because the fire changed. I also give him credit because of that relationship that we had built over the years, he showed up and he said, activate your evacuation plan, we'll help. And it's like, wow, okay. He didn't say, get out of the way, we're here to save you. And they helped us and the SAR group helped us and we had everybody out in about two and a half hours. So it worked well.

Tim Conrad (timsbits) (30:19)
dear.

Hmm. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah,

yeah. Yeah, those are those words, any, any responder hearing those, it's like that's saying that the Q word, which is quiet, ⁓ never say those things. And those will come back to bite you. Mother nature loves to prove you wrong these days.

Deb (30:51)
you

But

he was such a, he was regional. He's from the area. He understands these communities and nobody here will say a word against that guy. did a great job.

Tim Conrad (timsbits) (31:10)
Yeah, yeah, and a great approach because, you know, one thing I've sometimes said to people, it's like these communities have operated by themselves for years. They didn't need your help before you showed up. So don't come in here and think you're going to save them from themselves. ⁓

Deb (31:21)
Yeah, and there

really was nothing of that. And I have to say I kept thinking of the Shuswap several years previously and wondering how things would turn out. And so we're very grateful and happy the way it worked so well being able to have our crew work with BC Wildfire.

Tim Conrad (timsbits) (31:37)
Thank you to our audience members in Vietnam where I recently had a research study call.

and to you in Katowice, Poland, San Leandro California, Gibson's, British Columbia, Taipei, Taiwan, and Lviv, Ukraine.

We appreciate every share, like, and comment on all the Butterfly Effect Communications channels or over at www.communicationspodcast.com. Now back to Deb Borsos.

Tim Conrad (timsbits) (32:00)
You've said this line to me before. Don't sit and talk about Fire Smart. Get out and do Fire Smart while talking. So unpack that for me.

Deb (32:09)
Right. There is a lot of talk about Fire Smart and it's put out there and it's taken a while over the years. But gradually there are now communities that are like, right, we're just going to get out there and do stuff and clean up our own places. And it's interesting, we are a Fire Smart community now.

There are still, I mean, we live on the side of a mountain with a bunch of dead fur, and it was proven that yeah, it can light up pretty quick. There's still half a mountain that hasn't burnt yet above us. And we love living in the woods, all of us, and we love being surrounded by it. But some of us have been able to effectively do some fire smarting. Some of us don't touch our properties, and that can...

Tim Conrad (timsbits) (32:34)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Deb (32:53)
not be too helpful if your neighbor is one of those and you're one of the others. But I think it's a matter of we're just working on plans to try and have a community get together to do some cleanup and to make community in general more aware about how important that cleanup is to get get rid of the low ground fuels and the brush and clean away things. And I mean when we when the fire happened

Tim Conrad (timsbits) (32:57)
Yep, absolutely.

Deb (33:19)
and our crew stayed in, they wrapped every house in plastic and they pulled everything away from the houses, the propane tanks, all the wood, everything that was under houses, pulled it away, cleaned stuff up. So they did a ton of fire sorting for the entire community while the community was gone. ⁓ So in a way that was very lucky. But some people just say, that's fine, I'm not going to do a thing, whatever. And I just, I can't figure that one out. But...

Tim Conrad (timsbits) (33:31)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Deb (33:44)
and then doing on a larger scale, the landscape level cleanup. That would be a really good thing for our area, I would say, but for many places in BC. Get out and start doing it. Yes.

Tim Conrad (timsbits) (33:53)
Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely.

And I'll give you an example. So the audience, they're ever in British Columbia, they want to see one spot or two spots actually, I can give you. You drive down through from Cache Creek down to Lillooet. And as you're driving that road, you're going to go through First Nation there. And the trees are all thinned through that section. So their community lives in beautiful safety there. There was a fire actually. I was.

Deb (34:09)
Mm-hmm.

Tim Conrad (timsbits) (34:21)
part of responding to along that road. And it was interesting to look at the fire after and I was like, yeah, that would have been fine. They would have been okay with that, right? they sure they were evacuated, but it worked out fine. And same thing in the Shuswap for the First Nation there. That actually helped them. They saved a number of buildings because of the fact that they had a number of areas thinned out.

So it helped them and so you can actually see there in that case the fire came right up to it so you can drive in and see that on the little Shuswap area. So yeah.

Deb (34:53)
Yeah, it's great. And there's a community forest and I believe the regional district was involved, had crews for several summers. They've done a lot of fire smarting on parts of in Kaslo near to where we are. And also prior to that, they did do some up.

in certain spots, which I always, it's like they can only choose Crown land and things in the WUI (Wildland Urban Interface) and everything. But they chose certain spots that are helpful. It's just that we live on such a massive landscape. It's like, what do you do? Right? What do you do?

Tim Conrad (timsbits) (35:16)
Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah,

yeah, yeah. And this is where that climate change impact people, know some people will say is like, just get out and clean up the debris and stuff. It's an incredibly massive forest. This is not easy. We could all go out there. Every Canadian could go out every weekend and every hour after they're done work and do it. And we still wouldn't be done by the time we're dead. So ⁓ it's a lot of work.

Deb (35:34)
Yeah. I mean, I.

Yeah, exactly. I mean,

I feel a bit more safe now after the fire because the fire came down. Our property was one of the lowest points it came onto. so the hillside above us is rather fire smarted rather well. We have done our own fire smarting across our property. have 20 acres. But up above us, that's not going to be a problem for a little while.

Tim Conrad (timsbits) (36:08)
Yeah. And so like this thing, I'm hearing it in your voice. You've turned anxiety into action. It's one of the things that I picked up a few years ago from a resident and it works. You get out, do something and you feel better, right?

Deb (36:20)
something about it. Yeah, exactly.

Tim Conrad (timsbits) (36:22)
Yeah,

it's made a difference and I'm sure your community feels the same way as they've done things together. do you have a little bit of an example of that while we're chatting about it? Things that have happened in your community where you're working together to prepare so that you're not into that recovery position?

Deb (36:39)
Well, several of the people with property, I know one in particular, first they went out, they have a property with a big swath of bush on it that sits on the road and it touches other properties and they just went through it and they just cleaned it out. And then there was a group in the Lardo Valley, which is what we're part of, that brought in a chipper business that does chipping.

and so she had everything chipped and I see I see now unfortunately as trees will do the brush and the trees are starting to grow again but she's very committed to it and beyond that we have a regional fire smart manager and I connected the two of them up and she came in and did a assessment for the same property after which they replaced their roof which was an amazing roof like this much

Tim Conrad (timsbits) (37:19)
Mm-hmm.

Deb (37:25)
needles and brush and everything and it's now i believe it's now metal roof anyway brand new fire safe fire smart roof makes them feel much better about it

Tim Conrad (timsbits) (37:30)
Good. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. I love that it was

an amazing roof this thick full of pine needles.

Deb (37:40)
It

was quite beautiful to look at, but I'm an artist, what can I say?

Tim Conrad (timsbits) (37:45)
Yeah.

So the language around emergency management, how is it and could it be improved?

Deb (38:00)
Sure. I mean, I have noticed over time that there becomes this automatic level thing. So there's from the top down, there's from the bottom up. There you go. You've got two levels already where in fact, if we think about it a bit, and it's a whole change management thing, it's changing your attitude about as a first responder, who you're going into help. And it's from the community side saying,

we're very grateful these people are trained and can come and help us, but they have special skills and we have special skills and why don't we partner and have that type of communication where they're, and again, you have to build it on trust, you have to build the relationships, but if you start now, you will. mean, quite possibly there's a lot of people in smaller communities that their kids baseball coaches, the fire chief. So you've already got that relationship, right? So just build on it.

Tim Conrad (timsbits) (38:50)
Yeah.

Deb (38:54)
The trust will be there when you need it. That sounds so flippant, but I mean it. You have to build and build and build small increments and that's what will do it. It'll make it a lot easier and you won't have to go in with the RCMP to drag someone out of their house which is burning. I'm not leaving. They'll be able to say, buddy, hey Paul, Peter, Tom, come on, let's get out now it's time and the person hopefully will be more.

Tim Conrad (timsbits) (39:11)
Yeah. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Deb (39:22)
willing to believe that that's the best thing to do, which is very hard to leave your home when it's burning.

Tim Conrad (timsbits) (39:28)
It sure is. Yeah, absolutely.

I, yeah, yeah, I've been one of those responders that's been in that situation where, yeah, been there with a police officer and having to force someone out of their home because they won't leave and it's an in danger situation. So you never want to be there. And that it is that relationship that, that ultimately works. And that's what in that case, I knew the person and that's why I was, they brought me over and, we didn't have to do any arrests that day. So, ⁓ but yeah, right.

Deb (39:43)
Move.

Yay.

Tim Conrad (timsbits) (39:56)
came down to that relationship and thank goodness. So different ways of speaking that don't demean people or devalue them, including those that are helping. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Deb (40:05)
first responder agencies, people that work in BC wildfire, these people are trained in the incident command system and there is a language that is used as there is in healthcare, as there is in many other sectors. I find it's...

almost over the top with the acronyms in emergency management, but it's there for a reason. They use it to be efficient of time and everybody knows what you're talking about. I think if more people understood what all those acronyms are and also using

phonetic alphabet is helpful. They use that all the time in radio dispatching if you have a community that is using radios. Just learning the same language and then adjusting if you need to for your community. Our community uses the same language. Our fire crew uses the same system in the same languages but we do it a little bit differently because we're our own community.

Tim Conrad (timsbits) (40:37)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Deb (40:54)
But just being able to understand it and to use it if needed will bring out that trust. they know what I'm talking about. okay, that's good. I can trust them to go and do whatever I just spewed out at them. Right, it will build. And I think it's a very important link to have more communities learn that type of the system, understand the system because understanding incident command is not.

Tim Conrad (timsbits) (41:13)
Yes.

Deb (41:17)
know it's understood if you work in it but if you're a community member it's like what are you talking about. I know during our fire we had people who were on alert but not evacuated and they had little two-way radios and they were listening to our crew and they said that was so comforting to hear that there were people out there and we said you cannot break in and talk you can't you can listen that's it and they did and they said it was fabulous to be able to listen and understand what they were talking about and know that they were doing things.

Tim Conrad (timsbits) (41:44)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. it, it used to be a once upon a time, lots of people listening to what we called scanner land and, ⁓ and keeping an eye on all sorts of conversations from police, ambulance, fire, the whole nine yards. And it was fine. Like we didn't have too many issues. was definitely some now and then, it worked out pretty good. And, it did actually, I think built trust with people that things were being done. Okay.

Deb (41:53)
Yes.

Tim Conrad (timsbits) (42:11)
And on occasion, I would talk to them to let them know that they were there. So, was a middle of the night, anybody listening in, how you doing out there? We're doing fine. ⁓ And it's important to communicate with those folks out there. So, how would you recommend people look at language differently, especially with those most impacted as a priority?

Deb (42:22)
Yeah, that's a good one.

well, there is training you can do for the is called trauma informed training ⁓ to support people that are dealing with major traumas and upsets in their life. And there is language within that to that is perhaps

Tim Conrad (timsbits) (42:40)
Mm-hmm.

Deb (42:52)
softer but also as I was saying before it's honest it's direct it's not gonna go beyond expectations but it's going to help them and sometimes it's not even the language it's it's what you do I remember years ago I was working up in the where was I was up in Telegraph Creek and I had the opportunity to have lunch

Tim Conrad (timsbits) (43:10)
Mm-hmm.

Deb (43:13)
which included the chief at the time, a fabulous fellow. And I said him, what do you do for all your people in your town that have been traumatized by this enormous fire that has gone through? He said, well, probably what we would do is what we've always done. We would ask the elders to go and put the kettle on and they would go and put several kettles on and they would sit and listen. And sometimes that's all you need.

just to listen and that's really the best language you can have.

Tim Conrad (timsbits) (43:44)
Yeah, yeah, isn't it? Listening, opening those ears up and just taking it all in. It's, yeah, if anything, those getting out there into the community, think asking questions is the only time you should really be talking ⁓ in a lot of cases.

Deb (43:58)
Yeah, and

not trying to fix things. It's just listen to their story because repeating your story to someone validates it for yourself as well. You hear it when you're telling someone else, right? And when you tell it over and over, it's like, okay, it really did happen. And now we're here and this is this and just listening and showing that you're listening.

Tim Conrad (timsbits) (44:01)
Yeah.

Deb (44:20)
and not saying, well we could do this for you. It's like sometimes you don't need to do that unless they ask.

Tim Conrad (timsbits) (44:26)
And we've often say like, repeat back the words, repeat. No, bring it back in action. That's what people want to see. You listen and bring back things that they can see that you heard them. You know, that there's changes in their community that they are looking for, that you're supporting the things that they need, so on and so forth. You don't need to repeat back the words, just show it in actions.

Deb (44:38)
Yes.

Yeah, exactly. That's precisely it.

Tim Conrad (timsbits) (44:50)
Yeah.

So, while your work in recovery has made you a bit of a legend and I want to, I just going to add a little title in here because I don't know how much you hear it, but you're kind of queen Deb. You're the queen of recovery out there. Everybody, is, is looks up to you and, and looks towards you for, for advice and leans on you. you've also developed a passion for art though.

Deb (45:03)
my god.

Tim Conrad (timsbits) (45:16)
and a big passion. So I want you to tell us about some of your art and why you do it.

Deb (45:22)
Well, probably because I can't help myself. I'm from a family of six artists, all who did film directing and pottery and photography and art education and painting, you name it. It's a mixed bag from all the things that we have done. And so I've done it all my life and it is a go-to place for me. A lot.

during the time that I have been working in emergency management and recovery, if I need to decompress and debrief, I go to my studio. I also go to my garden, but my studio is also a place that go to. And I'm doing more of that now, getting back into doing exhibits and returning to where I was many years ago before emergency management stole my heart.

Tim Conrad (timsbits) (45:47)
Yeah.

Deb (46:01)
And what can I say? I'm a visual artist. I'm a pastelist. use chalk pastels. And most interestingly, I create almost entirely these days landscapes without any human intervention. No fences, no roads, no nothing in them. Less and less over the years I used to add them in. And I just found that I was doing only nature.

Tim Conrad (timsbits) (46:15)
Hmm.

Deb (46:21)
in what I'm doing mostly now. So it's a great way to do things like about turn on CBC, listen to what they have to say. I have no phone out there. It's great. Just me and my pastels.

Tim Conrad (timsbits) (46:32)
Yep.

Yep. Excellent. And what's the impact been on you during or after emergencies?

Deb (46:40)
probably similar to other people that work in recovery. You can only do this job so long or you to find coping mechanisms. So I'm fairly pragmatic and that is actually helpful in stepping back from not attaching yourself to motions or whatnot. But my first job as a recovery manager, I know my coping mechanism. I was also working part-time at the hospital at that point.

Tim Conrad (timsbits) (46:45)
Yeah.

Deb (47:09)
So I'd drive to work and as soon as I got in the car, I'd start crying. when I would stop, I'd go to work and do my job. And then I'd get in the car and come home and I'd be crying. And that was my...

mechanism for getting through a lot of what had happened because there were fatalities in the first job that I did. And so then I was the rest of the day I was working with the community and doing recovery stuff. And this went on for two years, not the crying, but the job. I gradually did get out of it, but that actually that was cathartic and it helped. And I know after a number of further jobs that I've done and

Tim Conrad (timsbits) (47:40)
Mm-hmm.

Deb (47:46)
communities I've worked with, I'm still affected.

Tim Conrad (timsbits) (47:49)
Yeah, yeah, they stick with us. There's no doubt. It's always part of our story from there forward. I could, I, one of our colleagues, Emily Epp, who I get to work with on occasion and worked with during the 2017 fires. She'll love this, that this will get included in a podcast, but she loves to insult me for how young I used to look in 2017 and I do not now. And, and I was like, well, that's a...

Deb (47:55)
Yeah.

I know you will.

Thanks.

Tim Conrad (timsbits) (48:17)
Partially your fault, But it's, yeah, lot grayer now. It's worn on a lot of us, so, during these last bunch of years. And you do need things to go to, so, yeah.

Deb (48:26)
Yeah.

I think after politicians who I see one after another come in with their dark hair and their nice looks and after a few years it's like, yeah, not so much. I think working in recovery is possibly second to that in what it does to you. But there's also, there's many benefits and there's many fine relationships you can build too. I still have friends from many of the communities I worked with that were my so-called clients.

Tim Conrad (timsbits) (48:37)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah.

Deb (48:56)
or the people I worked with as other responders. And that's very valuable.

Tim Conrad (timsbits) (48:56)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. I think that's been kind of a cool thing is for me, even though the last year, I've made friends with some people that knew of me in 2017, going back to that year. And we've become acquaintances and now friends. And it's really cool because, you know, you kind of knew each other a little bit through the grapevine, but you didn't actually know each other. And so those friendships are really good, too.

Deb (49:23)
They are good. Yeah.

Tim Conrad (timsbits) (49:23)
⁓ Yeah,

and on that note, you work with a lot of art groups in this world, so tell us a little bit about that side of things.

Deb (49:32)
yes, arts and emergency management and recovery. I work and promote because I've worked in community arts and the arts as well all my life. I'm always happy to promote the value of how the arts can be of benefit. And particularly in recovery, did one example I can give is a conference I was invited to for the arts up north in Wells where

Tim Conrad (timsbits) (49:36)
Mm-hmm

Deb (49:58)
we did all sorts of things. We did a tabletop exercise, we did a walk around town, I did a presentation, and all based around the tabletop exercise particularly was based around an arts group that had an emergency in their town. so the people sitting around the table are not necessarily emergency management people, they're the arts people. And so it was fascinating to me to listen to what their solutions were, which I can almost guarantee.

Tim Conrad (timsbits) (50:08)
Hmm.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Deb (50:24)
If I was doing this with another group who had been involved with emergency management and were just doing a tabletop, they would have completely different, very practical ways of dealing with the situation. The group that I worked with were fantastic. We're like, well, we could do this or we could do that. It was much broader in their thinking, right? Which is why I have said that artists would make good recovery managers because they think outside the box. You have to, you always have to think outside the box when you're doing things and...

know, they have a sense of humor generally and most of them have patience which you also need and so I've often met artists and psych, you'd make a really good recovery manager, but yeah the arts can offer a lot particularly with supporting the healing of communities but they can inspire community cohesion with doing public murals or building new buildings or building parks or building what have you. I mean I can think of a number of different

Tim Conrad (timsbits) (50:53)
Yes.

Yes.

Mm-hmm.

Deb (51:17)
situations. There's a there's a city down in Mexico that I found online a few years ago that after a major event, the town, was just a small town. They were not doing well. And somebody came up with the idea of doing this mural, which covers the entire hillside in about 50 different houses. It's amazing. It's really quite cool. But there's other examples. I talked with a lady after the

Tim Conrad (timsbits) (51:35)
Wow.

Deb (51:42)
They had a tornado in Ontario, Southern Ontario a few years ago, had a great talk with her about the things that they did and how they integrated community into rebuilding the community. They did a tree planting ceremony and they had the kids involved. And anyway, there were many things they did and they did it right. It's about integrating relationships, bringing in the community again, but in an artistic sense. And there is a group, Creative Recovery.

a network in Australia, which I am happy to share the link for. They've done fantastic things there and it was formed specifically to join the arts to recovery and they've done great things over 10 or 12 years. So I wish Canada had something like that.

Tim Conrad (timsbits) (52:10)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Yeah, and it's something that we have done that in different parts of Canada. One of the most famous examples was SARS back many years ago, they held the after SARS, which was almost a pandemic and a very, very serious disease that started to pass around Toronto, especially. And in the recovery of that, they did a large concert.

with the Rolling Stones, huge concerts, right? And that was part of that recovery is to get together around music. And so it's a great way for people to get together is around music, around that art, they did that in the shoe swap. The day that things were wrapping up, there was a concert. So as it was a switching between response to recovery, that was the switch was that concert. And...

Deb (53:09)
That's very important

one to do, yeah. And also the one year anniversary of any event that has been a major thing in a community. It's important to do an acknowledgement of some sort, I think. And I know communities do things many years after that, but that first year is particularly an ending, so to speak, ⁓ for many. Yeah, and a beginning.

Tim Conrad (timsbits) (53:30)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I just want to say, isn't it about, like, it's about showing that you've made it, right? Like, you've gotten through a year. It's a progress step, right? So, yeah.

Deb (53:41)
Yeah, progress.

it's progress and it's showing hope that there will be more going forward that is better and things will return. And they may not necessarily build back better, but they will be built back in the vision of the community.

Tim Conrad (timsbits) (53:58)
Yeah,

that's wonderful.

three questions that I ask every guest. What is one book, documentary or resource that you recommend for those learning about crisis, emergency management or recovery?

Deb (54:10)
Well, I'm going to break your rules already and give you two books. ⁓ One is by a marvelous English woman who has worked in many of the very large events in the UK over the years, Lucy Easthope. And she's written several books, but the one that I read, When the Dust Settles, it's about the human side of emergency response, response mostly, although recovery is included in it and the various things that go on.

Tim Conrad (timsbits) (54:13)
All right.

Mm-hmm. Okay.

Deb (54:40)
She's great. And also Rebecca Solnit, who wrote A Paradise Built in Hell. Excellent examples of the humanity within the whole event of what takes place and what takes place afterwards. would strongly advise that. I've read both of those books several times. And they're very good because they do point out the human side of things.

Tim Conrad (timsbits) (54:59)
so yeah, next one up is, so what advice would you offer information officers or communicators managing crisis or emergencies that would help them to perform their job more effectively?

Deb (55:10)
Well, I think we've covered this a little bit in our previous discussion, but two things that I would say is go in early and even if you're not in an emergency operation centre where you know at the top of the food chain type of looking down on the event, but talk to the people involved, find out what's going on, find out the history, find out if this happened before in their community and what happened then. Find out everything you can before you go in to offer your help to them.

Tim Conrad (timsbits) (55:22)
Mm-hmm.

Deb (55:37)
and listen. Just be patient and listen and don't listen and at the same time be going, can answer that while they're still talking, right? Just listen and focus. I would say would be two things that would be helpful. They were helpful to me when I finally learned how to do it.

Tim Conrad (timsbits) (55:57)
Yeah, excellent.

Now that's great. And how do you maintain your mental well-being during the most intense moments?

Deb (56:03)
Moment by moment, I would say you deal with what is going on and you know that the next moment will be different. It's like when I started driving 800 million years ago. ⁓ Somebody offered me the advice that all you have to do is do one block at a time. So deal, be in the moment and deal with what's going on and don't flip out because you think something else is going to happen because maybe it won't.

Tim Conrad (timsbits) (56:15)
You

Deb (56:31)
It's better to be silent and listen and deal with it than reacting to it. I guess it's the reactionary thing. Just wait and observe, I think is best because that helps you remain sort of calm. Mostly.

Tim Conrad (timsbits) (56:40)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, that's awesome. Well, that's great. Well, Queen Deb, thank you for being on the wildfires, floods and chaos communications podcast. So you are absolutely one of the most respected people in the recovery world in British Columbia and really in Canada. And I know you have

Deb (56:58)
Thanks, Tim, and if I find out who coined that phrase.

Tim Conrad (timsbits) (57:11)
adoration around the world for the work that you do. You come from the heart. You come from a place of caring and you understand rural and remote. Those are areas that I have always loved working in and that's where I work. We work in the same area so that's why we have crossed paths so many times. So I can't say enough about the work that you've done, Deb, really appreciate having you on the podcast.

Deb (57:23)
Yeah, me too.

Thanks so much, Tim. It's been great.

Tim Conrad (timsbits) (57:36)
Any of us who have done recovery work know it's much like chalk mark in a rainstorm. You need to be as resilient as Joni Mitchell has been throughout her life, not letting addiction, abuse, or health ruin a chance for a brighter day. Bring out the chalk, keep listening, creating, and growing. To match up with the recovery theme of this episode, go back to season eight, Recovering Together in the Cariboo with Steph Masun You can find show notes, including images of Deb's art, transcripts, ways to reach guests,

and links to episode videos on our website.

If you're a responder or in public relations or a resident who has experienced an emergency or crisis, I'd like to hear from you.

You can learn more and contact us at www.communicationspodcast.com for everything, including sharing with a friend or colleague. The Wildfire's Floods and Chaos Communications podcast is a production of Butterfly Effect Communications, copyright 2026. Goodbye. Hear me later.