The moment after a natural disaster is a window of time that can be used to adapt-to-climate (change), but this opportunity is in many cases demonstrably wasted. The paper is devoted to the question of how can the collective amnesia that sets in shortly after natural disasters be prevented. After a disaster, amnesia leads people to forget about what primarily should be designed and built. For example, following a flood, it is not enough to understand and visualize relevant facts, such as the highest level of the flood and so forth. To avoid repeating mistakes that have been made before, elements of the drama and its symptoms like shock, helplessness, chaos, fear, etc., should be included in the retrospection of the catastrophic event. In order to avoid the unsustainable cycle of amnesia, we work on ways of pairing the hard facts of the natural environment with the emotional cognition of the affected human beings. These two layers are presented in the context of planning communication with experts, laypeople, and decision-makers. The aim is to avoid an unreasonable reconstruction reflex, and facilitate sustainable progress in the form of environmental and climate change adaptation. Digital instruments and approaches – some of them standard, some of them rather unorthodox – are considered suitable means of drawing nearer to such an ambitious goal.