Business is booming at TimberHomes Vermont outside Montpelier. Demand for its timber-framed structures – from trailhead kiosks to rustic cabins – is high. In the past two weeks, the company has hired three new workers and is in the process of adding another two to keep up with the surge in demand, boosting the workforce by a quarter.

“We’re definitely firing on all pistons,” says Timo Bradley, one of six member-owners of the company.

But heading into Montpelier, less than a mile down the road, Massage Vermont is temporarily closed while its co-owners try to operate virtual healing sessions using breathing techniques. And in the state capital itself, the Savoy Theater, an art-house cinema showing independent films, is now open only for weekends. On its home page is a link to a national campaign. The message reads: “Tell Congress to #SaveYourCinema.”

Will Congress hear? And if so, which company will it listen to?

In Vermont and across the United States, economic recovery is taking place at two speeds. Some companies are moving, even rocketing, ahead. Others seem stuck in neutral, waiting for pandemic rules to ease or demand to pick back up. And for Congress, faltering in its bid to pass a new coronavirus relief bill, the proper size and scope of the package may hinge on these mixed signals as well as on an ideological divide over economic policies. 

If one looks for signs of recovery, there’s plenty of evidence for it. E-commerce, home-related industries, and goods-producing companies are seeing demand snap back smartly after a dismal spring. 

“For the moment, it looks like households have been able to sustain spending pretty well,” despite the expiration of $600-per-week extra federal benefits to the unemployed, says Jonathan Millar, senior U.S. economist at Barclays Research in New York. 

Thus, the economy might benefit from a small stimulus bill, such as the GOP’s so-called “skinny” rescue package, which failed to advance in the Senate on Thursday.

For those focused on struggling businesses, the House Democrats’ $3 trillion package looks far more appealing. It would provide checks to individuals and offer a cushion of federal aid to companies and state and local governments, buying them more time to recover from the effects of lockdowns and squeezed revenues. 

“We don’t want to see the recovery lag when we’re still so deep in the hole,” says Daniel Zhao, senior economist at Glassdoor, an online job and recruiting site. “It just extends the length of the recovery” toward pre-pandemic employment levels. “And the longer the recovery, the greater the risk that temporary reductions turn into permanent losses.”

Michael Conroy/AP

A help wanted sign is displayed at a Home Depot store in Indianapolis on Sept. 2, 2020. The U.S. unemployment rate has fallen since the spring, but remains severely elevated at 8.4%. Republicans and Democrats in Congress remain far apart on how much additional economic aid the government should provide.

The big question for Congress now is whether the pace of recovery is sustainable without further federal help. And here the evidence is mixed. Not only has consumer demand held up, but corporate earnings have snapped back since the spring, sometimes with surprising speed. 

Whether due to those relatively positive signals or clashing partisan positions, it appears to have grown more difficult for members of Congress to reach a compromise – despite the economy’s parallel signs of severe stress.

“Unfortunately, what has happened is that they’ve taken their foot off the gas because momentum has waned for the urgency of the moment,” says Caroline Bruckner, an American University tax expert who researches women-owned businesses. But “that’s not what I see in my neighborhood. It’s not what I hear when I talk to ... business owners.” 

Within a short walk from her home, she counts at least seven restaurants that have closed permanently since the spring. 

“In every crisis, you’re going to have a population that thrives, right?” Professor Bruckner adds. “But that’s not everybody. And, you know, the data is pretty clear that self-employed workers – who are the smallest of small business owners – are suffering pretty intensely.”

One potential reason that consumer spending looks OK is that the previous round of federal stimulus checks built up a reserve of savings that consumers can now draw on, says Mr. Millar of Barclays Research. A study for the National Bureau of Economic Research found that through early July the recipients of those payments had spent only about 40% of the money. The rest either went to pay off debt or was stashed away in savings accounts.

“It’s not too surprising that it’s 40%,” says Michael Weber, a finance professor at the University of Chicago business school and a co-author of the study. Stimulus checks in previous downturns generated only a slightly higher rate of spending.

The danger is that that saved stimulus will run out and that demand will taper off, economists warn.

If the goal is to stimulate demand, there are more efficient ways to do it, Dr. Weber adds. His study found that low-income families, people out of the labor force, and larger households with children were more apt to spend their stimulus payments than other groups.

The GOP proposal didn’t include new stimulus checks, and instead would have restarted the extra federal payments to the unemployed at $300 per week. For businesses, the bill offered includes liability protection for COVID-19 and a new round of funding for the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), which offered loans to small businesses and forgave the debt if firms held on to their employees. The House bill included general stimulus checks, extra unemployment benefits at the previous $600 per week rate, an extension of the PPP, and more.

Other stimulus targets might also provide more bang for the buck, the NBER study suggests, such as direct government purchases of goods and services and aid to cash-strapped local and state governments to help prevent them from cutting the services they provide. The latter provision was a feature of the Democratic measure, not the Republican one.

All this suggests that, should the recovery falter or Wall Street plunge to new depths, pressure on Congress to do something will ratchet up and the prospects of a bipartisan compromise would brighten.

But speed is important, analysts say. “Better to have something small now than waiting another four or six weeks,” says Dr. Weber.

Editor’s note: As a public service, all our coronavirus coverage is free. No paywall.

The impasse in Belarus has blown hot and cold over the past month, ever since people from all walks of life began pouring into the streets to protest an allegedly fraudulent election victory by their longtime leader, Alexander Lukashenko.

Security forces first tried to suppress protests with indiscriminate violence, then backed off and allowed people to rally peacefully. Most recently they have attempted a more targeted approach of rounding up opposition leaders and expelling them from the country. No police measures have worked, and Belarus awaits yet another weekend of massive street protests demanding Mr. Lukashenko’s departure and new, fair elections.

Much may hinge upon a summit between Mr. Lukashenko and Russian President Vladimir Putin, to be held in Moscow Monday. Russia, which backs Mr. Lukashenko’s reelection claim and upon which Belarus is economically dependent, holds the key to shoring up the country’s collapsing economy and faltering banking system with financial infusions and other aid.

But even without a resolution to the conflict, or even a clear way forward, many Belarusian protesters say that a month of struggle against Mr. Lukashenko’s regime has cleared their minds and changed their perceptions of what they will and won’t accept in future. Whatever happens next, they say, Belarusian society has crossed into new territory.

“During this month we have discovered that we can consolidate, we have grown up as a nation,” says Ksenia Turchina, a leader of the student strike committee at Belarusian State University in Minsk. “We’ve seen a real civil society starting to emerge, with people organizing in ways they never did, with initiatives of mutual assistance, holding creative evenings in the courtyards of residential buildings, many new things. People who never before declared a political position are now speaking out. ...

“Belarus may change, for better or worse, but it will never be the same again.”

“Changes are in store for us”

Belarus, a nation of 10 million on the western fringe of the former Soviet Union, has been politically and economically frozen since Mr. Lukashenko came to power in a free election in 1994. Since then he has stacked the political deck, rigged elections, and tightly controlled the economic levers. Soviet Belarus had a highly developed industrial base, productive agriculture, and a well-educated population that was relatively homogeneous and almost entirely Russian-speaking. Mr. Lukashenko retained state control over the main industrial enterprises, and allowed only limited privatization in other sectors.

As a result many Belarusians remain dependent on the state for their economic security, a fact that has kept Mr. Lukashenko in power through five election cycles – but which may have failed for him this time around.

“Belarusians are not united in their attitude toward Lukashenko,” says Andrei Bastunets, head of the Belarusian Association of Journalists. “Part of the population, perhaps a considerable part – including those dependent on the state and security forces – are behind him. Nobody can say what was the true result of the election, or how many actually voted for him. Now there is a perception that the majority did not back him, and the mass demonstrations have made that clear.”

The protests in Minsk and other cities have been impressively huge and filled with enthusiasm, but they may not be an expression of universal will. In past election cycles it was mainly professionals, students, and intellectuals who took to the streets, and their protests petered out due to the failure of agricultural workers and the large working class to join them. This time considerable numbers of workers did join in, and independent union leaders promised a general strike that has yet to materialize.

“Representatives of the creative class, intelligentsia, and business are more inclined to focus on liberation, economic reform, and ensuring political and civic rights,” says Ms. Turchina, the student leader. “For those who are popular with the working class, social reforms and raising living standards are principal concerns. In this situation the opposition has only voiced one program: fair elections and a new president.”

That lack of political planning is related at least partially to the virtually leaderless nature of the protests. During his 26 years in power, Mr. Lukashenko has actively suffocated any sign of emerging civil society, independent political parties, or even public figures who might attract popular trust. Hence, outside of the official ruling circles, there is a distinct shortage of administrative expertise, managerial skill, and political savvy to draw upon. That’s been aggravated by the latest policy of scooping up opposition figures on the streets and deporting them to Poland or Ukraine.

As for those who are not protesting, it is hard to gauge their thinking, in part because many seem reluctant – or afraid – to talk about it.

Natalia Larionova, a medical worker and young mother in the provincial city of Vitebsk, says she is tired of quarreling with her family and friends about politics.

“I work a lot, and my principal concern is my family and my children,” she says. “I am not going to go out into the street and make myself a target, because I see no sense in it. We have good conditions here in Vitebsk for families, including things like subsidies for children under 3, flats provided for families with children, and other benefits. ...

“I suppose changes are in store for us, and we shall have to accept them. But I am not sure about it. Look at the crises in Europe and the U.S., do we want that? I have relatives in Ukraine who say that after all those struggles, it seems like Europe doesn’t even want them. Actually, Russia looks better to me.”

A leery eye on Russia’s involvement

Mr. Lukashenko has courted Russia for financial aid and subsidized energy, and long ago signed on for a “union state” that would eventually lead to full economic integration between Russia and Belarus. He will almost certainly go to Moscow on Monday with his hand out. But in recent years his relationship with the Kremlin has soured because of Mr. Lukashenko’s regular flirtations with the West, his frequent ultimatums to Russia over energy subsidies, and his foot-dragging on Russian demands to open up for Russian investment in Belarus’ closed economy.

Mr. Putin has already pledged military assistance – Russia and Belarus belong to a common NATO-like security alliance – in the event that Belarus is threatened from outside and, more ominously, promised to create a reserve police unit to help restore order if Belarus should face civic breakdown. After a mass walkout of Belarusian television workers, technicians and experts from Russia’s giant state-run RT media conglomerate came in to take their places.

Russian experts say that Mr. Putin’s short-term objective will be to bolster Mr. Lukashenko and prevent any precipitous changes in what the Kremlin regards as a vital “buffer state” between Russia and NATO. That might include assistance to ward off an impending financial crisis in Belarus, which will likely be paid for by major economic concessions by Mr. Lukashenko. In the longer term, the Kremlin is likely to back a process that might rearrange the leadership in Belarus without threatening its pro-Russian geopolitical allegiance.

“Russia will probably push Lukashenko toward constitutional reforms that will make possible fresh elections in a year or so,” says Fyodor Lukyanov, editor of Russia in Global Affairs, a Moscow-based foreign policy journal. “Most likely that will be synchronized with some reset of the union state, with a new position opened up for Lukashenko to be shifted to. The main thing will be for Belarus to remain part of the Russian sphere and continue its integration with the Russian economy.”

Many Belarusians say they are leery of Russian involvement, and fear that Moscow’s priorities will not align with those of the Belarusian people.

“I believe that the Kremlin is considering various options to ease Lukashenko out while increasing Russia’s influence in Belarus,” says Yaroslav Romanchuk, a political activist who ran against Mr. Lukashenko in elections 10 years ago and now heads the Mizes Center, a liberal think tank in Minsk. “But Russia needs to find a credible solution, one that does not ignore the will of Belarusian society. Any good plan must include a humanitarian component, that frees political prisoners and punishes the culprits responsible for the past month’s repressions. So far we do not see any Kremlin support for these demands. Supporting Lukashenko is not the way. ...

“Lukashenko’s trip to Moscow may facilitate dialogue, or not. But this conflict isn’t going to die down. The demand is already too strong among Belarusians for freedom, democracy, and revenge.”

Courtesy of Sandra Boitumelo Phoma

Sandra Boitumelo Phoma, a South African Ph.D. student in microbial biology, says of being a Black earth scientist, "I am aware that I am occupying a space that never had me in mind."

As a child, Sandra Boitumelo Phoma never considered becoming a scientist.

“When I saw scientists, I saw Einstein. I saw white people,” she says. “For me, it felt so far-fetched.”

This was Nelson Mandela’s South Africa, where Black women like her could now aspire to be an engineer or maybe a doctor. She could dream of being a lawyer or a teacher. But a scientist? “That still wasn’t for someone like me,” she says.

Today, however, Ms. Phoma is on the cusp of finishing her doctorate in microbial ecology. She studies what she calls the adventures of the ocean’s microorganisms, whose diversity is a bellwether for that of ocean life more generally, and whose contributions to their ecosystem, she says, are often overlooked by researchers.

If revealing the importance of those organisms lies at the core of her scientific work, equally important is making the world see that this work can be done by people like her.

“I am aware that I am occupying a space that never had me in mind,” she says. “Scientists work every day with incredibly complex ideas, but we struggle to understand more basic ones like race and power.” 

This week, thousands of Black geoscientists like Ms. Phoma gathered on Twitter, Zoom, and YouTube for the first Black in Geoscience Week.

“Growing up, most of us didn’t have role models to look up to, so now that we’re in the position to be the role models, we want to do something to encourage the next generation,” says Munira Raji, a Nigerian British geologist at Durham University in the United Kingdom who co-organized the program with Craig Poku, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Leeds, and Hendratta Ali, a geologist at Fort Hays State University in Kansas. 

Whose outdoors?

Black in Geoscience Week followed in the footsteps of several other “Black in…” weeks on social media in recent months. The trend began in June, with Black Birders Week, organized after a video of a birder named Christian Cooper being threatened in New York’s Central Park by a white woman went viral in May. After that came Black in Chem Week, Black Women in STEM Week, Black in Neuroscience Week, and several others. 

For the scientists who thought up Black in Geoscience, the crisis in their field felt especially acute. In the United States, only 12% of current graduate students in the earth sciences were Black, Indigenous, or people of color as of 2019. Just 3% were Black. And racial minorities as a whole make up only 4% of all tenured or tenure-track professors in the top 100 geosciences programs in the U.S. 

“We wanted a chance to celebrate the work that Black geoscientists are doing, but at the same time to ask why we remain the smallest demographic in the field,” says Dr. Poku. 

That lack of diversity, many argue, speaks to wider cultural stereotypes about who “belongs” in the outdoors – the very kind that led to Mr. Cooper having the police called on him for birding, or made Ms. Phoma question herself throughout her Ph.D. research as her fellow graduate students chatted about the weekends they spent surfing and sailing. 

But many observers argue it is particularly important to have scientists of color in the earth sciences, many of which explore the impacts of climate change, because around the world, it is communities of color that stand on the front lines of that crisis.

Scratching the surface

Long before Ruth Sitienei studied and worked with Kenya’s top scientific minds as a soil scientist, she had another teacher in the field: her father. Growing up on his farm, she learned from him how to conserve nutrients in the soil, and protect their environment from degradation. 

“Even now that I work in the field, I know there is no one who knows a farm better than the farmer,” says Ms. Sitienei, a soil scientist with the Nature Conservancy. “And they are the ones most invested in protecting it.” 

Tiara Moore, a postdoctoral researcher working in soil biodiversity at the University of Washington, says Black geoscientists often make the connection between their research and wider issues of environmental justice much more quickly than their white colleagues, who may not have such direct lived experience with it. 

“When I look at my research questions, I look at them differently,” she says. “I bring a different set of experiences to the table.” 

Courtesy of Dr. Tiara Moore

Dr. Tiara Moore was conducting fieldwork when she says a white woman threatened to call the police on her. Many Black earth scientists say they are often made to feel out of place in their field of study.

On Twitter this week, Black geoscientists shared their research and chatted about their struggles in the field. Many said they had never had a Black mentor or professor. Others noted the loneliness of being the only Black scientist in a department or lab. In a Twitter chat called #Blackinthemud about fieldwork, Dr. Moore shared the experience of a white woman threatening to call the cops on her as she conducted her research.

“These conversations we’re starting to have this week are only scratching the surface,” Dr. Poku says. “But we’re hoping they open a door, and we can continue after this week is over.”

For much of the Arab world, “hot” has taken on a whole new meaning this year.

In August, Baghdad shattered a record set in 2015 by hitting 125.2 degrees Fahrenheit, and followed up with multiple days over 120.

In September, it was the Levant’s turn at record-breaking heat, with Jordan counting 13 days of 105 degrees-plus temperatures, its longest heatwave in recorded history. Amman skirted 110 for multiple days, and the port city of Aqaba registered as the second-hottest place on Earth one day at 120. Eastern Syria hit 122.

Struggling to sleep, walk, or even think in Amman’s oppressive heat, Mohammed Al Farrag finds his only relief is walking into the neighborhood supermarket.

“I just want to cool down,” the Egyptian laborer says as he lifts his shirt by the freezer section.

As experts and the United Nations warn of climate change-induced heatwaves creating a “climate apartheid,” the dividing line between haves and have-nots in the Arab world can be summed up by just two letters: AC.

In the Levant, once home to dry, temperate summer days and cool nights, air conditioning has suddenly gone from an unnecessary luxury to a must have. Yet it is beyond the reach of many.

Seeming desperate late one recent morning, Khaled searches an electronics store in Amman that has been emptied of AC units, despite sticker prices ranging from 350 to 800 Jordanian dinars, or about $490 to $1,100, one month’s salary.

“We have held out for years, but our children can’t study or sleep with the heat,” the accountant says.

Warming pattern

In patterns that scientists say have been exacerbated by climate change, heatwaves in the Levant and North Africa are becoming more frequent, longer, and hotter, leaving millions struggling to keep cool.

“Much of the Middle East and North Africa have warmed since the industrial age,” says Zeke Hausfather, director of climate and energy at the Oakland-based Breakthrough Institute.

Jordan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Syria have warmed about 3 degrees Fahrenheit since 1950, he says, noting that the region is projected to warm a further 1 to 8 degrees over the next 50 years, depending on global emissions.

“This long-term average warming makes it easier to have extreme temperatures outside the historic record become a regularly occurring event,” he says.

Even though a flood of Chinese and Turkish models has lowered the cost of AC units in the region in recent years, the price drop comes at a time that governments in Egypt, Jordan, Tunisia, and Saudi Arabia have lifted electricity subsidies and even imposed taxes on consumption, making the units several times more expensive to operate.

In other Arab states suffering chronic power outages or shortages – such as Iraq, Syria, and, increasingly, Lebanon – the dividing line has become not only who can afford an air conditioner, but the diesel-powered electric generators to run them.

In Jordan, an average family using an air conditioner can see their monthly electric bill jump from about $70 to $210.

Yazeed Deifallah, a father of two, is one of many Jordanians forced to choose between cooling and necessities.

“I can’t afford [$170] a month for electricity to run an air conditioner,” the father of two says as he drags an electric fan into his apartment on the seventh day of the heatwave.

“If I have to choose between staying cool or putting my daughter in a nursery so my wife and I can work, I am going to choose putting food on the table over comfort every time.”

The 1 percenters

The coronavirus has made this problem worse, too. Before the pandemic, on the hottest days, many working-class citizens in the Arab world would browse aimlessly with their families in air-conditioned malls.

Now closures, indoor capacity restrictions, reduced air-conditioning, and straight-up fear of infection is preventing or discouraging the practice.

Meanwhile, the coldest 1% have air-conditioned homes, remotely activate the AC in their cars before leaving their air-conditioned offices, and are able to manage home electricity bills that can spike above $2,000 a month.

“I know it is expensive, but you can’t put a price on comfort,” says Ali Majed, a Jordanian business owner whose electric bill in the summer is $1,400 a month and who pays a valet to cool his car for him.

And while residents of Iraq and the Levant struggle with the extreme heat, those in the fossil fuel-rich Gulf have taken air conditioning to unprecedented levels.

In preparation for the 2022 World Cup, Qatar is building an outdoor stadium that will pump cold air through outlets underneath each seat and on the sidelines for athletes. In the UAE and Qatar, cold air is pumped onto sidewalks and open air markets so that visitors can enjoy the outdoors despite 60% humidity and 110-degree heat.

New construction

Underlying the AC dividing line is an entrenched socioeconomic inequality that has transformed Arab capitals into megacities with miles of hastily constructed housing.

A lack of job opportunities fueled mass migration to cities; the population of Arab urban centers grew 400% between 1970 and 2010, and is expected to double to 400 million by 2050 – equivalent to the current population of the entire region.

Yet as the cities changed, so too did the way homes were built.

In order to meet the demand for affordable housing, engineers abandoned traditional construction techniques that kept buildings several degrees cooler even in the dog days of summer: with the use of local stone known for its natural insulation, and the placement of windows to maximize airflow.

In a bid to build on every possible inch, engineers ignored the centuries-old practice of positioning buildings to minimize direct sunlight during peak hours.  

In their place rose towering apartment buildings made of concrete, cinder block, asphalt, drywall, and asbestos, with most rooms facing the sun at peak periods with porous insulation.

Experts say the interiors of 75% of Jordanian homes are above the comfort maximum of 75 degrees Fahrenheit indoors during the summer.

“I usually describe it like this: When you are inside the apartment or bedroom in Amman, it is as if you are out on the streets,” says Mohammed Taani, chairman of the Jordan Smart Cities Council and secretary general of the Arab Renewable Energy Society.

“New construction with improper insulation leads to 30% energy and heat loss. This means in extreme temperatures, Jordanians and residents in many Arab cities need AC close to 24/7 in the summer and heating 24/7 in the winter.”

Meanwhile, the mass of concrete and asphalt soaks up solar radiation by day and radiates heat in the evening, creating a “heat island” that offers little nighttime relief for residents.

Office on the street

On a drive through south Amman neighborhoods in August, men stripped down to undershirts and their children sat on balconies or leaned their heads out of windows, desperate for a breeze.

“Most people simply do not have the income for the constant air conditioning or heating needed in these unsustainable homes in extreme weather,” Mr. Taani says.

Another segment of AC have-nots in the Arab world is the 30% to 40% who work outside and in the informal sector – on farms, in workshops, on street corners, and in makeshift garages and tiny shops – and have poor or no access to cooling.

In cities such as Amman, Baghdad, and Damascus, street vendors wilt under the relentless sun.

Hossam sells boiled egg sandwiches from his stand, a prayer rug folded over his head for shade one humid morning.

“We don’t have office jobs for AC,” he says, dabbing his forehead with a wet cloth from his back pocket as he slathers a bun with hot sauce. “We only have one way to keep cool: Think about winter.”

Photo by Ann Hermes/The Christian Science Monitor

A sign at the entrance of Paradise, California, on March 13, 2020.

The residents of Paradise are on the run again this week. The California town became well known in 2018 after a wildfire killed at least 85 people, displaced more than 50,000 people, and destroyed 95% of local structures. Now many in the mountain town, which has been partially rebuilt, are fleeing during the state’s severest wildfire season on record. More than 2.5 million acres have been burned across the state. Other parts of the West are also on fire.

Paradise, of course, is more prepared this time in material ways, such as better fire-resistant houses and reconfigured streets. Yet its spirit of resiliency and community bonds are also on display. “I feel a calm resolve, like, I’m not going to let this fire win,” Lauren Gill, the outgoing town manager, told a local reporter.

The town’s tragedy on Nov. 8, 2018 – the deadliest fire in California’s history – turned out to be an opportunity for Paradise to forge lessons far beyond those of better fire prevention and the need to live outside fire-prone areas. One example: “Serving people who lost everything has been healing for me too,” one resident told the Monitor last year.

Drawing the right lessons from a disaster is not always easy. The default is to look for something or someone to blame – climate change, zoning laws, or sparks from an electric utility’s equipment. Fixing such issues is critical, but just as critical are shifts in thought, such as learning to be calm as the flames approach and being alert to the needs of neighbors.

Being open to finding the right lessons is the first step. When two-time Oscar winner Ron Howard decided to make a documentary on Paradise in 2018, his company at first sought to turn the town’s devastation into a warning.

“When we started this movie, it really was a climate change movie,” Justin Wilkes, president of Imagine Documentaries, told the Los Angeles Times. “Over the course of that first year, it went from being ‘This is a climate story’ to ‘Wow, this is really a story of humanity and community.’” Mr. Howard said the Paradise story is a case study for “what survival looks like, and the possibilities for real healing.”

“The passion and commitment of the people of Paradise, to one another and to rebuilding their community, is a reminder of the strength and resilience of the human spirit,” he said.

The film, “Rebuilding Paradise,” was purposely released by National Geographic in July to help the U.S. deal with another disaster – the COVID-19 pandemic. Now as major wildfires burn in California, Oregon, and Washington state, the film – and its newfound message – is applicable to fire-struck communities in those states. And the people of Paradise are probably still as open as anyone to the opportunity to grow in the face of trauma. Calm before a firestorm helps bring calm after a firestorm.