I woke up early this morning to a phone call from my station alerting me to go out and ask people how they feel about tornadoes. Spoilers: they’re not fans.

So I got in the car and headed for a trailer park. In these situations, people often welcome me for some reason. I often tell folks if my neighborhood ever got hit by a tornado, I’d swat at reporters trying to shove a microphone in my face and yell, “I don’t feel like talkin’ to the media right now!”

But one guy opened right up. During the worst of the storm, he saw a neighbor’s RV had flipped over, and the neighbor was screaming for help. She was sitting on top [which was where the door now faced], so he and a couple others got a ladder and helped her down.

He went outside and risked his life to help a neighbor who was in peril. Loyal Scaiaholics will recall my penchant for driving around during severe weather and telling other people it’s unsafe to drive. My plan during a situation like his would likely involve weeping softly in the corner. Sure, both are heroic, but his mission, “When your neighbor needs help, that’s what you do,” feels just a bit more significant.

Another guy said he and his wife woke up to the wind shaking his camper, and he could feel the pressure change. He’s a retired firefighter and when he saw he came through without damage, he checked on the neighbors, too.

I then moved on to Irving. There, the storm had cut a hole in in the side of an apartment building and peeled back the roof.

A woman said she was hopeful, too. She remembered the tornado that hit Downtown Fort Worth in 2000. She said Downtown came back stronger, and she’s hoping the same for Irving.

I started wandering around again. Police let reporters cross the street as long as we stayed on the other side of the crime scene tape. After giving it some thought, I decided to walk to the end of the block and come back down the other side instead of sneaking through some sort of hilarious media obstacle course.

In fact, this wasn’t even my first time being directed across power lines. After tornadoes near the Red River in 2016, the emergency management department welcomed me to walk directly across a line because it was a more direct route.

We may all feel preoccupied with politics right now, but when we need help, days like this can show we still come together.

And we can still work toward a future where we, all of us, choose the most effective path across power lines.