Thread by @bopinion

When Brad Hart, the mayor of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, finished his 14-day Covid quarantine, he said: “I’m fine.”

“My energy level is back. That was really it. It was just congestion and being really, really tired” trib.al/ubmWFza

A month before, Hart had issued a mask order.

He would’ve done it sooner, but the governor told localities it was illegal. He eventually decided to act anyway.

📹 via @QuickTake trib.al/ubmWFza

What was the reaction? “I got people who thanked me,” he says.

“And I got people who said, ‘You’re a bum and you’re going to come and take my gun next.’ Are you kidding me? Just wear a mask. It’s not that hard" trib.al/ubmWFza

Behind Hart’s house rests a massive oak tree, at least 150 years old. It crashed through his roof when an August windstorm blew through the state — a derecho.

“You can’t really turn the heat on because it just goes right up out of the house,” he says trib.al/ubmWFza

“It’s a little chilly in the mornings.” The damage is everywhere:

Tree stumps galore
Branches piled high
Parks with 80% of their trees gone

The derecho may lead them to double down on climate action, after the cleanup and recovery work is done trib.al/ubmWFza

After Cedar Rapids, @FSBarry heads to Main Street, USA — the recreation of an American downtown in 1910 that opened at Disneyland in 1955 — in Fort Collins, Colorado.

Walt Disney knew that nostalgia sells trib.al/ubmWFza

“Main Street will bring back happy memories,” Walt Disney once said.

Sitting at Austin’s American Grill, Mayor Troxell isn’t buying it: “Right over here on Pine Street, my best friend’s dad in junior high was shot and killed in a bar.”

📹 via @QuickTake trib.al/ubmWFza

Troxell says the city is better than ever:

🛍️Full storefronts
👨‍👧‍👦Record visitors
🚲300 miles of bike trails
🎤Concerts and events
🏘️Affordable housing
🍻Local breweries

A lifestyle website recently ranked Fort Collins the most livable city in the U.S. trib.al/ubmWFza

There are challenges, of course.

The next morning when Frank stepped out of his RV, he was immediately hit by the smell of thick smoke and the sight of a massive dark cloud moving across the sky, blocking out the sun and leaving no trace of the mountains trib.al/ubmWFza

Colorado State University’s Energy Institute is housed in an old coal plant from the 1970s.

Director Bryan Willson, greets Frank with grim news: “You are breathing the worst air quality in the U.S. — it’s actually worse than Delhi."

📹 via @QuickTake trib.al/ubmWFza

Willson calls the wildfires “a sudden manifestation of a long-term issue."

“As we’ve gotten warmer winters, the pine bark beetles have come in and we’ve lost tens of millions of acres of forest that are standing” — a mass of kindling wood waiting to go up trib.al/ubmWFza

Before heading out from Fort Collins, Frank stops at the Silver Grill Cafe.

They came for the giant cinnamon rolls. The sweetness won’t smother all that smoke, but the city — if it keeps looking forward — just might trib.al/ubmWFza