Hello again, I'm on an al-me.

This year's midterm elections demonstrated once again that America is a nation divided.

We've heard that again and again in discussions of campaigns across the country and in accounts of the voting.

There's another side to the American story.

As natural disasters and hate crimes have created victims,

they've also led to outpourings of humanity,

responses to the need for community in times of trouble.

That's happened after California's deadly firestorms

and in the aftermath of the killings

at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pennsylvania.

Well, here's some first person stories and later we'll take a look at restoring the broken

connection between the young and the old, something that's developed in this country over the past hundred years.

Older people went from being seen as a natural part of the cycle of life to old age being

viewed as an incurable disease.

Let's go first to the Woolsey Fire that destroyed so many homes in Malibu.

And April Novotny is with us. She is a survivor of that fire.

Thanks so much for joining us. Thank you for having me.

Tell us a bit about what happened to you, what your circumstances are now.

Our circumstances now, well, we're displaced. I'm a mom of two small girls, and right now we're kind of popping around in our third home,

trying to get into a rental, and, you know, we're just rebuilding.

We're just taking all the help that's been given, which has been overwhelming, and we're so grateful,

and we're one foot in front of the other.

...