Rachel Notley gets kudos for handling of Fort McMurray wildfire so far

Alberta Premier Rachel Notley is getting high marksfor leadership in handling the Fort McMurray wildfire crisis, butpolitical observers say the disaster remains a dicey politicalproposition with limited upside and a lot of downside.

Political scientist Duane Bratt says the process of gettingpeople back into their homes and getting aid andreconstructionmoney will tell the tale on how Notley will be remembered in thelong term for her handling of thecrisis.

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"On the political side,if you handle it well, it's a shortterm blip," said Bratt, a political scientist with Mount Royal
University in Calgary. "If you screw it up, it never goes away."

Evacuees are scheduled to begin a staged return startingJune 1st to Fort McMurray, almost a month after a raging blaze broke through the firelines and destroyed 2,400 structures, most of them houses.

Since then, Notley has become the face and focus of efforts tocontain the blaze, save the city, and get itbackonitsfeet.

She has given almost daily updates for three weeks.

'She's handled this as well as can be expected'

It's been an organizational challenge orchestrated on the fly onmultiple tracks: getting the evacuees out and fire crewsin,securing the area from looting, and finding temporary homes for thedisplaced in Lac la Biche, Edmonton andbeyond.

Preloaded debit cards were being handed out a week after theevacuation.

Notley met with oilsands officials to consult and calm concernsabout production. She toured the city twice, once withPrimeMinister Justin Trudeau and afterward received Trudeau's pledge toexpand employment insurancecoverage.

There was benefit to be derived from the past experiences ofmajor disasters in the province a wildfire that destroyeda thirdof Slave Lake in 2011 and massive flooding that displaced thousandsin Calgary and southern Albertain 2013.

As we get further and further along, the choices will getharder. It will be harder to please everybody.- Janet Brown, Calgary pollster

"She's handled this as well as can be expected," said Bratt."Had any of that had gone wrong she would've taken theblame, soshe gets the credit here as well."

Bratt said the evacuation itself was a masterstroke, with morethan 80,000 people successfully getting out on the onenorth-southroad out of the city.

Notley has also been credited for her work with her politicalrival, Opposition Leader Brian Jean of the Wildrose party.Jean, whorepresents Fort McMurray in the legislature member, saw his own homedestroyed in the fire.

Both Bratt and Calgary-based pollster Janet Brown agree Jean hasdone an admirable job, pushing Notley and hergovernment on theirfire-fighting and reconstruction efforts and on personifying theimpact of the disaster.

"For those Albertans that actually don't know anyone in FortMac, they know Brian Jean and they know his story," saidBrown.

"He wouldn't take a room in a refugee centre and he wouldn'ttake a hotel room. Through it all, he's still putting hisconstituents first."

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BothNotleyand Jean have been credited for working together inthe crisis, but Brown said that will inevitably change asthe crisismoves into reimbursement, insurance and rebuilding.

"As difficult as this situation has been, there haven't been alot of hard choices," said Brown. "You just do what needsto bedone.

"As we get further and further along, the choices will getharder. It will be harder to please everybody. It will be harder toknow exactly what the right thing to do is."

Bratt agreed, saying if evacuees remain out of their homes forextended periods or if aid money doesn't arrive in timelyfashion,opinions will change.

There's also the final financial tally for a province that isalready running more than $10 billion in deficit this year.

"The longer this drags out, the more things get complicated,"said Bratt.