If there's one person who knows how officials in Fort McMurray are feeling, it's High River Mayor Craig Snodgrass.

He says after going through the disastrous 2013 flood, he also knows how the evacuated residents feel.

"When you are displaced from your home and the biggest thing for those people up there right now is the unknown, of getting back home, and what's going to be left when you get back home if anything," Snodgrass says. "It's that unknown chunk that I've always talked about, that there's nothing worse for people in any circumstance than not knowing what's going on and that's the phase of going through a disaster that these guys are in right now."

Snodgrass says they'll be frustrated and angry over the next while, especially with the pace of the recovery but he urges them to stop and catch their breath because it's going to take awhile to get back.

He's reached out to Fort McMurray Mayor Melissa Blake.

"I'm not here to tell her what to do or anything else, but we do have a lot of experience and I know she'll reach out if she feels that she needs any advice or wants to hear how a certain situation went down here, I just wanted her to know that we're a 100 per cent behind them," he says.

He says the city is in for a long ride as they try to sort things out as High River is still working to recover.

Snodgrass says the next six months are critical to get the city set up to move forward and to take advantage of the opportunity the disaster presented and embrace it, and while it's tough to get through, to rebuild better than it was before and he feels it's something every resident and business in High River has done.