In Maricopa County last year, 94% of people who died of heat indoors had an air conditioner in their home. Present, the reports said. The unit was there. It just wasn't running. That gap kept showing up everywhere we looked this week. A family gets a buyout "awarded" and is still paying rent on two places. In Ohio, a flood system that's worked for 110 years can't find funding because nobody remembers what it prevents. We kept landing on the same question: how far is it from the institutional word to the moment someone is actually safe?