This is another in a series of stories investigating the decline in rural Kansas and efforts to reverse it. To listen to the series as a podcast, click here.
GREENSBURG The massive tornado that leveled this town in 2007 pretty much defines disaster.
Eleven people dead. The place in ruins.
Yet without the tragedy, Greensburg wouldnt have had the chance to transform itself into the greenest community in America.
It now runs on renewable energy wired into buildings and homes designed with the latest in conservation technology.
Yet the question persists: What difference did it make?
About 850 people live in Greensburg, still about 600 fewer than when the tornado struck.
I dont think that population is the only measurement of success, said Stacy Barnes, who is Greensburgs city administrator and now in charge of sustaining the communitys comeback.
Some defensiveness, even spin, lies in the suggestion that the number of people who live in a town doesnt measure its success. Despite Greensburgs shinier, more ecological veneer like so many diminished towns across rural Kansas its less than it wants to be.
Greensburgs leaders sold the towns green comeback as a way to set it apart from other withering rural communities. They hoped such a bold plan could help the community buck trends that had been driving people out of rural Kansas for generations.
Theyre still hoping.
The tale of Greensburgs comeback starts on the night after the tornado struck the town. When local, state and federal officials took cover from yet another storm in the basement of the damaged Kiowa County Courthouse.
The discussion was, Hey, were going to build back. Why dont we do it green? said former Mayor Bob Dixson. The seed was planted that night.
A dozen years after the devastation, the scars from May 4, 2007, remain visible. Desiccated trees. Vacant lots in the middle of town. A few crumbling foundations where houses once stood.
Still, the town looks fresh and revitalized compared to neighboring communities.
Its new high school brims with technology. Many of the communitys new energy-efficient buildings look like something youd expect in a trendy tourist town, not in windswept Greensburg.
Great expectations
Barnes, the current city administrator, lived in Lawrence at the time of the tornado. She returned to help her parents former mayor Dixson and his wife sort through the rubble of her childhood home. After several trips, Barnes and her husband decided to move back to be a part of this communitys future.
First, she worked as an assistant to the city administrator. Then she got a job helping to plan a new museum to showcase the citys main tourist attraction a hand-dug well dubbed the largest in the nation.
