On August 10, 2020, the city of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, experienced devastation unlike anything in its history. A derecho, an intense windstorm with hurricane-force gusts, swept through the city, leaving more than 670,000 trees snapped, uprooted, or destroyed in under an hour. From this tragedy came a hard-earned understanding: if your community waits until disaster strikes to think about trees, it’s already too late. Here are the main lessons learned during the recovery process —the kind of knowledge that every community can act on today.