On Monday, Chris Ballard and Tom Corns opened Greensburg State Bank. Except on this day they were operating it from under a 10-by-12-foot canopy that Ballard put up in front of the bank's only building, which was damaged by Friday night's tornado.
City Manager George Kolb and Police Chief Norman Williams left for Greensburg this morning, hoping to find out what Wichita can do to help as the city cleans up in the wake of the monstrous tornado that destroyed almost everything in town.
Four Fort Riley soldiers and a reserve police officer were arrested for looting cigarettes and alcohol from a store in Greensburg, the state adjutant general's office said.
When Kansas National Guard equipment was being shipped to the war in Iraq, Gov. Kathleen Sebelius warned that if a major disaster hit here, Guard troops wouldn't have enough equipment on hand.
Parts of Greensburg had to be evacuated again today even as residents were allowed in to retrieve belongings. Rescuers were working to shore up a slight leak on a 30,000-gallon rail car carrying anhydrous ammonia, a tank damaged in the tornado, said David Sternbenz, an official with the Topeka Fire Department.
Finally, there's good news from here. The town's famous 1,000-pound meteorite is not lost after all. It was just hiding, under the rubble of the museum that had housed it for decades and is no more.
Two days after the disaster, hundreds of rescuers and townspeople from Greensburg worked to bring order out of chaos. There was a lot of work, and a lot of chaos.
As the faint sun rose Saturday, bit by bit it revealed the enormity of the tornado damage. Near what had been a convenience store on U.S. 54, a moving van lay on its side, spilling out a household of possessions -- a dining room set and golf clubs lay in a heap.
As rain fell softly Sunday, work crews sifted through the rubble looking for more victims, backhoes cleared U.S. 54 and crews spray-painted an orange "V" on vacant houses.
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development today announced a range of disaster assistance for Kiowa County and Greensburg.
Tornado threats typically fade when the sun sets, but meteorologists say Friday's tornado didn't form until well after dark. The supercell thunderstorm that produced the wedge-shaped tornado in Kiowa County continued to spawn tornadoes for four hours and nearly 100 miles.
As the tornado swirled above him and his youngest daughter, Dennis McKinney waited for his neighbor and her 1-year-old son to come over to his basement for shelter.
Insurance Commissioner Sandy Praeger is reminding people affected by tornadoes and storms in western Kansas that the Kansas Insurance Department is available to help.
The house was built in 1925, but it didn't become their home until eight years ago, when Diann moved from El Dorado to Greensburg to marry David.
Twenty-seven feral cats that were being transported from a farm in Syracuse to be spayed and neutered in Pratt before going to new homes were killed in the Greensburg tornado.
At the shelter at Barclay College in Haviland, 12 miles east of Greensburg, Red Cross workers Saraphena Tannahill of Derby and Donna Ward of Coldwater said they desperately need phone service or some other way to communicate with workers at the shelter at the high school or nearby church.
Attorney General Paul Morrison today warned Kansans to be wary as they begin the cleanup and rebuilding process following the recent severe weather that damaged Kansas communities.
U.S. 54 -- dubbed "the yellow brick road" as it runs through town -- was not paved with gold after the killer tornado devastated Greensburg.
Near a symbol of survival for Greensburg, Gov. Kathleen Sebelius signed a $32 million relief package for rebuilding the town. Lawmakers approved the measure Tuesday, which had been set aside for the ceremonial closing of the Legislature but quickly turned into a day of work to help Greensburg, where a tornado ripped through on the night of May 4. More than 1.5 miles wide and packing winds of up to 205 mph, it leveled more than 90 percent of the town of 1,400 and killed 10 people.
HOW TO DONATE MONEY KEYN Radio, KSN Channel 3 and Dillons Grocery Stores will conduct a statewide Greensburg Disaster Relief Telethon from 7-9 p.m. today. Call 888-952-6790.
In an effort to bring fun to Greensburg kids, Kevin Clash, the man who for years has been the voice of Elmo on "Sesame Street," will visit Kiowa County on Saturday.
Darin Headrick, Greensburg school district superintendent, appreciates all the supplies people want to send to help his students and teachers.
For Norman and Beverly Volz, May 4 began as a day of quiet celebration. Bev had just finished seven weeks of breast cancer radiation and felt optimistic. At their home that Friday night, Bev, 52, and Norman, 54, held hands and smiled at each other. They had been married 33 years.
Memorial Day weekend has always been a big time in Greensburg, and the May 4 tornado won't change that. Neither will the people attending the town's annual rodeo and high school reunion go hungry, thanks to some barbecue aficionados from around the state and region.
The Greensburg City Council on Wednesday accepted the resignation of Mayor Lonnie McCollum and set a June date when the city will begin contacting owners of property that hasn't been touched since the tornadoes destroyed the town.
Those who saw former Wichitan Phil Stacey on "American Idol" know he can sing. But the 2,900 people who attended Stacey's sold-out benefit concert at Central Christian Church on Tuesday learned that singing is just one of Stacey's talents.
Country music fans who buy an all-session ticket on Thursday to the upcoming Winfield Country Roundup can save money -- and contribute to Greensburg tornado relief at the same time.
It's been one month since Greensburg was devastated by a tornado packing 205-mph winds, and only a few days since John Janssen was named the new mayor. (Lonnie McCollum, who in the early days was a tireless booster, resigned the post citing mental exhaustion.)
U.S. 54 through Greensburg, which has been closed since the May 4 tornado, will reopen to traffic on Monday. For the past month, motorists have been detoured around the tornado-ravaged city as cleanup crews used the highway to haul debris to a landfill.
The animal shelter holding dogs and cats displaced by the Greensburg tornado has been put under a quarantine because of an outbreak of parvovirus. The Pratt County Humane Society was placed under quarantine May 25 after several dogs were diagnosed with the highly contagious canine disease, Carmen Simon of the Kansas Animal Health Department said Thursday.
In the weeks since a monster tornado knocked down Greensburg, hundreds of residents and volunteers have been wading through the debris of nearly 1,000 flattened buildings.
GREENSBURG TAKES A BREAK The portable lights came from Dodge City, the fence panels from Cimarron, the bleachers from Haviland and the food from Garden City.
Every year for 43 years, Greensburg has had a rodeo. This year, the tornado not withstanding, will be no exception. The rodeo is on for Friday and Saturday, as scheduled.
Wichita and Sedgwick County face the threat of tornadoes on Wednesday, forecasters warn. The Storm Prediction Center of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has placed a portion of Kansas, along with parts of Oklahoma and Nebraska, at a moderate risk for severe weather on Wednesday.
The Greensburg High School Class of 2007 had one doozy of a senior prank planned, if only the weather had cooperated. This was no mere TP job.
Karen Gibson boiled three packages of spaghetti noodles, browned two pounds of ground beef, simmered three jars of pasta sauce, tossed a salad the size of a basketball and baked up four boxes of garlic bread to feed her growing household on a recent Thursday night.
Activities: Played volleyball and worked at Dillons, bagging and stocking What she lost: Because she lives outside Greensburg, her home was unaffected, and "I got all my stuff out of my (school) locker the next day, so I really am one of the lucky ones."
Severe weather could threaten the Greensburg area today and tonight, so volunteers will not be permitted inside the decimated Kiowa County town.
Norman Shank has helped others in need. Now he is on the receiving end. He's amazed when people he doesn't even know show up at what's left of his 37-year-old house to help reclaim his life. Volunteers with Billy Graham prayed with him. Members of the Central Kansas Chapter of the American Disc Jockey Association helped clean up debris.
Greensburg's famous 1,000-pound space rock landed at Exploration Place on Monday, where it will be on display for about a month. Dubbed the "Space Wanderer" when it was unearthed in 1949, the pallasite meteorite -- the second-largest of many that have been excavated in Kansas -- will spend the next few months wandering the state while Greensburg rebuilds.
Greensburg's famous 1,000-pound space rock landed at Exploration Place today, where it will be on display for about a month.
Right after the tornado wiped out his town, 11-year-old J.D. Colclazier heard screams over his father's emergency radio. It was another father yelling into his emergency radio: "My kids are pinned! I need help now!"
Diann Rogers knew there was no way Bebe could have survived. She had called and called for her 9-year-old cat to come home the evening of May 4. The Rogerses lived across from the John Deere dealership in Greensburg. Bebe loved to sneak over and catch catnaps in the tractor cabs.
The tornado that leveled most of this community cleared the way for a highway construction project that may ultimately shape how the town will be rebuilt.
Since the May 4 tornado churned through Greensburg, the Kansas town has become a magnet for generosity. Underlying all the giving is a definite psychology, observers and officials say.
One month after surviving a tornado that destroyed most of Greensburg, the massive concrete grain elevator offers one of the first signs that the community's rebuilding effort has begun.
The owners of a century-old church near here that was heavily damaged by the tornado that leveled Greensburg will renovate and repair the building as money becomes available.
About a month ago, Greensburg recovered its famous 1,000-pound pallasite meteorite from beneath rubble near the World's Largest Hand-Dug Well.
Severe weather could threaten the Greensburg area Tuesday and Tuesday night, so volunteers will not be permitted inside the decimated Kiowa County town.
Residents whose livelihoods were interrupted by the May 4 tornado can be paid for working in the cleanup effort under a $20 million federal grant announced Thursday.
Greensburg Mayor Lonnie McCollum -- a voice of optimism since a tornado devastated his town -- said Friday that he has resigned because he is mentally exhausted and wants to get back to being a retiree.
Phil Stacey's fundraising concert in Wichita sold out this morning. Stacey, a former Wichitan who tied for fifth place on this year's "American Idol," will perform Tuesday night at Central Christian Church to help raise money for Greensburg tornado relief.
Adam Haskin, a Greensburg High sophomore, lost his home and belongings in the May 4 tornado, but he never lost sight of one goal: to compete at this weekend's Kansas State Track Meet.
The National Weather Service has been urging people to make weather radios a cornerstone of their defense against severe weather for years. But county emergency management officials say there are large gaps in central and south-central Kansas.
The Kansas adjutant general's office released this update Wednesday on Greensburg recovery work: Debris removal As of Wednesday morning, 13,114 dump truck loads of storm debris had been hauled to the Kiowa County landfill. The landfill will be closed for Memorial Day weekend.
Sarah Keller thought it was outrageous that someone would aim a protest at a church where people were honoring a military veteran who died after being injured by the Greensburg tornado.
With standing ovations for one of their members who lost his home in the Greensburg tornado, state lawmakers approved a $32 million relief package to help the town get back on its feet.
Emmy-winning daytime talk show host Montel Williams credited Wichita for helping launch his public speaking career. In 1988, Williams, a Navy lieutenant, spoke about drugs to Wichita classrooms with a friend, Lt. Drew Brown.
U.S. 54 through Greensburg will reopen for traffic at noon today -- one month to the day after a massive tornado destroyed most of the town.
Highway 54 between Greensburg and Pratt will remain closed over the Memorial Day weekend, Sharon Watson, spokeswoman for the Kansas Adjutant General's Office, said today.
Approximately 100 Farm Bureau Financial Services agents and employees worked the area four miles south of Maxwell on Friday to clear debris from farm fields. The employees and agents drove from Manhattan to help.
Days after the deadly May 4 tornado took out this town, the superintendent of schools declared they'd have classes come August. Privately, folks in town thought the notion was crazy. No way it would happen, not when virtually everything was gone.
Danny Trent, one of the last victims of the Greensburg tornado to be released from the hospital, celebrated a new-found freedom on Wednesday.
More than 50 National Guard members who were deployed to Greensburg after a tornado wiped out most of the town are being asked to return some of their pay because of a bookkeeping glitch.
Along the littered streets of what was a thriving town of 1,400 people, concrete gray and splinter brown dominate a desolate landscape.
The 15 cats rescued from the Greensburg tornado that were moved to the Kansas Humane Society in Wichita are available for adoption, starting today.
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.
Greensburg's faithful don't let the destruction of their churches by a tornado keep them from gathering to worship.
Larry Burke wandered the streets of Greensburg in shock the night of May 4. Today, three months after a tornado leveled his hometown, the founder of Wichita's Copper Oven Cafe and Bakery is fighting back.
It takes time. Danny Trent takes several deep breaths, then gingerly swings his legs off the bed. He waits till the pain subsides. And then he stands. On May 4, doctors didn't know if he would survive. The Greensburg tornado had sucked Danny up out of his house and slammed him into a water-filled ditch 100 yards away.
More families displaced by a tornado that destroyed most of Greensburg have been given the green light to move into some of the temporary mobile homes sitting vacant in town.
The May 4 Greensburg tornado is proving to be one of the state's most expensive disasters of the past decade, making the month of May among the most costly in recent memory.
The rebuilding of tornado-devastated Greensburg ought to make for dramatic television. And a big-name TV producer was in town Monday night to explain how he -- with the help of movie star Leonardo DiCaprio -- planned to capture that drama and help the town while he's at it.
Residents have begun moving into 300 mobile homes in Greensburg, in what officials hope is a temporary solution for those who lost their homes in the May 4 tornado.
Jerrold Hoffman has vivid memories of that night 52 years ago when a tornado leveled this little town, destroyed nearly all its trees and killed 77 people.
No money or important documents. Instead, a 70-year-old time capsule found in the tornado wreckage of Greensburg High School held newspapers, membership lists and other ties to the city's past.
If you had to start over, rebuild your life from scratch, what would you do? If you had no home. No business. If the town where you're raising a family was reduced to dirt, with only scattered remains of buildings and homes. Forget about schools and churches. Nothing's left.
U.S. 54, the most traveled road through tornado-ravaged Greensburg, will be moved about three blocks north of where it is now, the Kansas Department of Transportation announced today.
The U.S. Senate has approved legislation to allow funds from a $20 million U.S. Department of Labor grant to be used to hire public employees who will help Greensburg rebuild from the tornado that destroyed most of the town in May.
Larry Burke's memories of celebrating the Fourth of July as a kid in Greensburg are quintessential small-town America. There were fireworks stands on nearly every corner, he said, and he and his brother Dennis would buy bottle rockets from nearly all of them.
Lanna Swisher tried to keep her expectations low when she arrived at the animal shelter. It had been more than two months since she had last seen her cat. Buddy, a 3-year-old gray tabby, had been missing since the May 4 tornado leveled Greensburg.
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.
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.
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