When a cyclone crosses the coast or a flood cuts a highway, the communication task changes in an hour. It is June. We are months out from the next cyclone season, which is exactly why now is the time. The readiness that holds in February is built in quiet months like this one. Disaster recovery has run through my whole career, in the department and then as a consultant. Nearly a decade at Transport and Main Roads leading communication and engagement on a regional infrastructure program, with cyclone and flood reconstruction a large part of it. Cyclone Yasi. Cyclone Debbie. Then, more recently, Cyclone Alfred and the South Coast flood and disaster reconstruction, and corridors like Cunninghams Gap and the Goat Track on Tamborine Mountain, where a closed road is not an inconvenience. It is isolation. In those weeks you learn what crisis communication actually is. It is not a plan you pull off a shelf. It is the honesty to tell people what you know, what you don't yet know and when you will know more. It is a single 1800 number that gets answered. It is an update that arrives before the rumour does. The hardest part is rarely the engineering. It is holding public confidence while the situation is still moving, reporting into a state disaster coordination centre, keeping ministers, media and affected communities working from the same facts. Some years the events and recovery came at once. Three DRFA reconstruction packages running in parallel across three council areas, each with its own community and its own timeline. You cannot copy and paste a message across them. Each one needs its own voice. Cyclone season runs November to April. The work that decides how it goes happens in the months between. In an emergency, people do not need perfect information. They need to trust the person giving it to them. That trust is the real infrastructure, and right now is when you build it. #DisasterRecovery #CommunityEngagement #CrisisCommunication #Resilience #Infrastructure