Emporia, KS to Liberal, KS - The BIG TORNADO

The second major event in the history of the city of Greensburg was on May 4, 2007 when an EF5 tornado hit town at 9:45 in the evening. It was estimated to be 1.7 miles wide, wider than the city itself and traveled for nearly 22 miles over 1 hour before curling in on itself and dying. The National Weather Service estimated the winds at the center to be 205 mph and these destroyed 95% of the city and severely damaged the remaining 5%. Luckily tornado sirens sounded in the city 20 minutes before the tornado struck and this probably saved many lives although 11 people died and 63 were injured, most hit by debris while seeking shelter.

Here you can see the path that the tornado took with Greensburg near the top where the red dot is, right before it began to curl and die.

The supercell storm continued to rain on the town all night and the next day and, much of what hadn’t been destroyed by the storm was unsalvageable. About 800,000 cubic yards of debris were hauled away. Utilities were destroyed, hazardous waste was strewn throughout the town, transportation was halted and the highway running through town (the one we traveled to get to the town) was closed for a month.

Here you can see where a home used to be with the driveway and sidewalk leading up to it.

Because the town was mostly destroyed, the town council saw this as an opportunity to rebuild the town as a ‘Green’ community, really putting the ‘green’ into Greensburg. All city buildings were built to LEED standards and the city council encouraged the citizens to follow these standards also. They also required homeowners who were rebuilding to have a storm shelter. We saw the wind farm comprised of 10 turbines outside of town which supplies the city’s electricity and so much more that they sell carbon offsets which have been purchased by Ben and Jerry’s, Clif Bar, Green Mountain Coffee Roasters and Stonyfield Farm.

This town is really amazing. It remade itself and, though the town is smaller than it was, it looms large in environmentally friendly building and has served as a laboratory for sustainable building and an example for other towns contemplating the same type of building. It lowered its carbon footprint and in the process increased its environmental footprint.

Here’s a BEFORE picture followed by an AFTER picture. Obviously this tornado was wider than the town.

More than 1/2 of the 250 homes built after the tornado use about 40% less energy than comparable homes built before the tornado. Pretty amazing. The town has lost people and will never be the same but the citizens of Greensburg have done an amazing job of rebuilding and their courage in the face of the develtation they faced is evident. They've done a great job. 

50 miles on down the road is Liberal, KS where we found the Mid American Air Museum with their large parking lot where we planned to stay for 2 days. The Museum actually encourage RV’ers to stay there.