Kansas.com: Greensburg Tornado

Recovering Greensburg marks milestone

ROY WENZL AND JILLIAN COHAN — Mon, 05 May 2008 05:34 CDT

Seldom has such a small graduating high school class in Kansas received such a rousing sendoff from such a large crowd or in such strange and evocative circumstances.

In the first high school commencement speech he has given, President George W. Bush on Sunday called upon the 18 teenagers of the Greensburg class of 2008 to consider a life of service to others. His speech came exactly one year after the town was leveled by a tornado.

Their perseverance in completing school while helping their parents and others rebuild will shape their character all their lives, he told them.

"I ask every member of the class to devote your lives to a cause greater than yourselves," Bush said. "You can never predict what tomorrow will bring... (but) you can be certain that serving others will always make your life more fulfilled."

He commended senior Aaron Widner for his decision to enlist in the Marine Corps, earning a round of applause when he told the young man, "I wish you the best at boot camp, and I look forward to serving as your commander in chief."

President honors local volunteer

PHYLLIS JACOBS GRIEKSPOOR — Mon, 05 May 2008 01:38 CDT

The president of the United States told Buddy Shannon to "keep up the good work" on Sunday at McConnell Air Force Base, and Shannon said thank you on behalf of Real Men, Real Heroes of Wichita.

The exchange took only a moment, but it's a moment that Shannon and his family won't forget.

"I just kept thinking that it could have been any one of 31 other men, and the organization chose me for this honor," Shannon said after the ceremony. "I'm honored and humbled that they chose me."

Shannon was presented with a lapel pin reading "The President's Call to Service Award," honoring his work as a volunteer.

President George W. Bush uses the awards to thank volunteers for making a difference in the lives of others. He has met with more than 600 volunteers since the program started in March 2002.

'Flirting' with Bush nets a surprise kiss

PHYLLIS JACOBS GRIEKSPOOR — Mon, 05 May 2008 01:38 CDT

When President George W. Bush returned to McConnell Air Force Base late Sunday afternoon after his visit to Greensburg, a crowd of about 300 service personnel and their family members were waiting.

The crowd cheered wildly as Bush stepped from Marine One. The president strode quickly toward them, shaking hands, offering greetings and signing autographs.

Several dads lifted children to their shoulders for a better look at Bush, and those in the crowd most anxious to touch the president waved and called out.

One of them was Master Sgt. Kimberly Barnes, a 25-year veteran of the Kansas Air National Guard. Barnes' enthusiasm prompted one of her colleagues to tease her.

"Stop flirting with the president," the colleague said.

Tornado victims' memorial dedicated

JOE STUMPE — Mon, 05 May 2008 01:38 CDT

Claude Hopkins would have felt right at home during the ceremony unveiling a memorial to this town's tornado victims.

His granddaughter, Julia Ohlde, who spearheaded the project, served as master of ceremonies.

The granite monument she helped design features an etching of the town's old water tower, a western Kansas landmark that Hopkins lived near.

And his little red dog, Humphrey -- originally feared lost in the tornado -- was there. Now a pet for Hopkins' two great-grandsons, the Dachshund-pug mix seemed to enjoy himself, except for being a little spooked by a bagpiper playing "Amazing Grace."

"Everybody knew Claude," Ohlde said of her grandfather, a retired school custodian who died in the twister. "The hardest part of looking back this past year has been knowing Grandpa wasn't there to offer support."

Construction costs drive more residents from Greensburg

ROY WENZL — Sun, 04 May 2008 06:47 CDT

This town was blown to bits a year ago today. At the shattered hospital, where many of the 59 wounded showed up, the guy in charge was physician assistant Chris Gardiner, who lived in a home that he'd bought for $75,000.

In all, 13 people died. Dozens were wounded and everyone was homeless, including Gardiner, who patched up wounded people minutes after his house disintegrated.

Afterward, donors, insurance companies, and state and federal governments sent millions. The media made Greensburg's bravery a yearlong story. President Bush came.

Gardiner and his neighbors wanted to rebuild.

But at least half will not.

Three days of events mark town's progress

DEB GRUVER — Sat, 03 May 2008 06:32 CDT

Car-door-slamming winds crashed the kickoff of a three-day celebration here Friday commemorating the one-year anniversary of an EF-5 tornado that tore apart most of the town.

"It's a 'wind-wind' situation," quipped Bob Mosier at what was supposed to be a community picnic at Sunset Acres Park.

Instead of sitting down, socializing and catching up, residents grabbed sack lunches and quickly got back into their cars and trucks, out of the wind.

"It's terrible. We didn't pick the right day. We didn't last year either on the fourth," he said, referring to the May 4 twister.

Mosier owned six houses and interests in two other homes in Greensburg at the time of the tornado. One survived.

Family bounced around, then home to Greensburg

DEB GRUVER — Fri, 02 May 2008 01:41 CDT

It took some fixing up and sweat equity, but Mike and Tamera Kaltenbach have a home in Greensburg again.

They lost their rental home in the May 4 tornado. That first night, they stayed with a teacher Tamera knew.

The next month, they stayed in Haviland with their friends Karen and Bill Gibson, who opened up their home to the family. The home to five ballooned to a home to nine with the Kaltenbachs and their two sons, Garrett and Dylan.

"We're still very good friends," Karen Gibson said, despite sharing close quarters for a month.

From June to October, the Kaltenbachs stayed in a rental home in Haviland, unsure where they would land permanently, though they hoped it would be Greensburg.

Mechanic back on the job after long recovery

DEB GRUVER — Fri, 02 May 2008 01:41 CDT

Some days Danny Trent doesn't feel like it, but he knows he's lucky.

Although he still has shoulder and back pain every day, he can walk on his own now and do his job as Greensburg's city mechanic.

In the days after a tornado flung him into a water-filled ditch, Danny wasn't sure he'd ever do those things again.

"I don't know he'll ever be the same, but at least he's moving," said his mother, Theresia Trent.

This weekend is a big one for Danny. It marks the first anniversary of the Greensburg tornado. And his oldest child, Kasha, will graduate from Greensburg High School, where President Bush will deliver the commencement address.

Greensburg tornado survivor Bunny Giles learns to go on after her losses

DEB GRUVER — Fri, 02 May 2008 05:47 CDT

A year later, Bunny Giles' face still bears a bruise.

It's small but stubborn, on her right cheek. She tries to cover it with makeup. But every day, she says, the bruise shows up, a reminder.

Bunny is bruised in many ways from losing her husband of almost 64 years in a tornado almost a year ago.

Doctors tell her the bruise on her face might not go away.

And neither might the bad dreams she has about losing Alex.

Greensburg cleanup earns $10,000 donation

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 01:42 CDT

The tornado-ravaged community of Greensburg is in the spotlight again -- this time for a cleanup effort that volunteers organized last fall.

Community members, determined to rid the town of the huge piles of rubble left over from the storm, organized a cleanup weekend in October. The event was submitted as a project for USA Weekend's Make a Difference Day, which led to national recognition and a $10,000 donation for the town.

"It bothered me that there was still so much to be cleaned around town," said Ruth Ann Wedel, a Greensburg resident who was part of the project. "I wanted to get out and help."

The cleanup weekend involved 260 volunteers -- 95 of them Greensburg residents who were mostly dealing with their own personal property losses.

"The best way to explain it is that during those two days, Greensburg was like a beehive of activity," said project volunteer Jim Keith. "There were people everywhere. We had farmers driving trucks and bankers and lawyers driving loaders.

Radar gives researchers fodder

STAN FINGER — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 01:48 CST

The Greensburg tornado may prove to be a defining moment for understanding how large tornadoes develop, officials said.

A portable Doppler radar used by the University of Oklahoma near Protection in Comanche County captured high-resolution imagery and data of the 1 ¾-mile wide tornado as it formed, strengthened and bore down on Greensburg in May.

The data and imagery captures the strongest supercell thunderstorm complex to develop in nearly a decade.

"It's just incredible looking at that data," said Greg Carbin, warning coordination meteorologist for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Okla. "This is as bad as it gets.... It doesn't surprise me that you're seeing things you haven't seen before.

"Every time I've looked at this case, it's hard for me to figure out how the atmosphere can do that. It's almost unnatural."

Greensburg, Udall storms eerily similar, experts say

STAN FINGER — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 05:41 CST

As meteorologists assessed what was left of Greensburg after a tornado decimated the Kiowa County town in May, they were reminded of another moment in history 52 years earlier.

Udall.

In the deadliest tornado in Kansas history, the town south of Wichita was wiped off the map by a twister that struck at 10:35 p.m. on May 25, 1955.

It killed 82 people.

There hadn't been another tornado like it until Greensburg was hit the night of May 4.

Greensburg showed which systems work, which have gaps

STAN FINGER — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 01:48 CST

Emergency workers arriving in Greensburg the night a massive tornado struck the Kiowa County town weren't prepared for what they found.

Virtually every building in the town had been destroyed or damaged.

Cell phones didn't work. Electricity was out. Houses, buildings, street signs were gone.

"To roll in there and have the only light in the town be the headlights of the vehicle that you drove in... it was like driving on the moon," Sedgwick County Emergency Management director Randy Duncan said.

"The complete absence of any kind of infrastructure in a Kansas town is something we've never seen before."

Lessons from Greensburg

STAN FINGER — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 02:40 CST

When meteorologists and emergency management officials have nightmares, they're often about tornadoes bearing down on cities at night.

It was already so dark on May 4, 2007, that storm chasers had to rely on lightning flashes and snapping power lines to track a large tornado -- a "wedge" -- as it bore down on Greensburg.

The tornado, later estimated to be 1 ¾ miles wide and an EF-5 on the Enhanced Fujita scale, killed 11 people in the Kiowa County seat, injured dozens more and wiped out 95 percent of the town.

As another tornado season looms, local and state officials are working to implement lessons they've learned from the Greensburg tornado.

Some of those lessons are time-honored truths reaffirmed, such as the need for people to respond quickly to threats.

KU architecture students at work on Greensburg's first 'green' site

DEB GRUVER — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 01:37 CST

A group of graduate architecture students at the University of Kansas is building what Greensburg leaders hope will be an example of "green" design and construction.

The KU design and build program is constructing the sustainable prototype using materials salvaged from an ammunition plant, wind turbines and a geothermal heat pump, among other Earth-friendly systems and designs.

The students, in the Studio 804 class, hope to unveil the building in Greensburg on May 4, the one-year anniversary of the EF5 tornado that tore through the town, leaving little intact.

The town has pledged that all city-owned buildings will be certified at the highest LEED -- Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design--level, platinum. It is the first city to take such a pledge in the United States.

The 1,600-square-foot building, to be relocated to Greensburg's downtown area, will be used as an art gallery and community gathering space.

'Green' homes to go up in Greensburg

Mon, 11 Feb 2008 01:39 CST

A nonprofit group charged with leading tornado-damaged Greensburg's environment-friendly initiatives has announced plans for a dozen "green" demonstration homes.

The homes, which will be built using environment-friendly techniques, such as insulated concrete forms, solar energy and wind-generated power, will cost $200,000 to $300,000 to build. They will be rented out to visitors or residents on a first-come, first-served basis and will be the centerpiece of the town's ecotourism concept, allowing visitors to spend the night in a green home.

"There's no science museum in the country that allows you to come stay overnight, but this one will," said Greensburg GreenTown executive director Daniel Wallach.

Wallach said the project is unique.

"Nothing like this exists in the world that we are aware of. This has piqued a lot of interest all over the world -- and that's what we were hoping for," he said.

Post-tornado gifts overwhelm Greensburg

LAURA BAUER — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 17:15 CST

Outpourings of kindness

Residents in the tiny town of Fairview didn't know they'd be sending trees, toys and ornaments -- all the essentials of Christmas -- to the kids of tornado-torn Greensburg.

But that was before their mayor, Charles Rogers, decided in September to drive some 300 miles with his wife, Isabel, to see the destruction for himself.

"I guess I was being what you call snoopy," Rogers said.

He saw what hundreds of outsiders before him saw. A town obliterated by a May tornado. Only a few buildings left standing. City business conducted out of trailers because even City Hall was gone. So much loss.

AT&T honors Greensburg pair

JERRY SIEBENMARK — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 17:15 CST

Within an hour after an EF-5 tornado ripped through their community, AT&T employees Melissa Lucht and Ed Stauth were at their office attempting to re-establish some semblance of a telephone network in Greensburg.

For their efforts, they were named recipients of AT&T's first national award for outstanding customer service, the Whitacre Award, AT&T said Monday. Each received $10,000 and a crystal trophy.

The award was presented to the Greensburg workers for "going above and beyond the call of duty," the company said.

Lucht, who rode the May 4 tornado out in the basement of a home she rented on the northern edge of Greensburg, said Monday that she went to check on AT&T's central office because she knew emergency workers and families would need telephone service.

That was despite losing the roof to her home.

One tornado-ravaged town helps another

Thu, 24 Jan 2008 17:15 CST

For Jerrold Hoffman, seeing trees planted in the yards of tornado-flattened Greensburg will be a dream finally coming true.

Hoffman knows what it's like to survive a killer tornado. The Udall resident recalls when a tornado leveled his town southeast of Wichita 52 years ago, killing 77 people and ripping away most of the trees.

Next Saturday, Hoffman and other volunteers expect to be in Greensburg to oversee tree planting in the town of 1,400. Greensburg is recovering from a May 4 twister that all but wiped it off the map, leaving 11 people dead and some 2,000 trees destroyed.

Hoffman said around 40 homeowners already have signed up for a tree in their yards, and he's planning return trips next year to plant more.

"I thought it was going to be an overnight job. But it's going to be an ongoing job. I think by next fall we should be pretty close to finishing," Hoffman said.

From our archives: Storm ended 64 years together

DEB GRUVER — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 17:15 CST

This story originally appeared on Page 1A of The Wichita Eagle on May 8, 2007.

PRATT - Alex called out for Bunny.

Three times, he said her name.

And then, no more.

Trapped in the basement of their Hopewell home, wedged under the weight of two trees ripped from the ground by a tornado, Bernice "Bunny" Giles, 82, waited.