From Greensburg, Kansas

Greetings, readers, from the Bread Basket of the U.S. Greensburg, Kansas, was famous for its largest hand-dug water well, a large metorite, and just plain happy folk. The population of about 2,000 changed earlier this month.

My mother’s family is from this town. I have several cousins in the area, and the news of the tornado hit home. In fact, it hit every home in the town. Imagine waking up and finding Balboa Park gone. No zoo, no hospital, no church, no lights, no electricity, and finding a big mess on the front yard. That is what happened to Greensburg. As of this writing, 12-people have died from the tornado. Aerial pictures (http://kansas.com) cannot give the big picture.

The attitude of the region is paramount. They’ll rebuild. Sure, on the grand scale of it all, Greensburg is just one of the many thousands of small towns across the U.S. To loose it — would be a blow to the core of our beliefs as citizens. The county seat of Kiowa County, Kansas, will be back and better than ever.

To walk down on what is left of main street is beyond description. Every building, every sign, every tree was stripped bare. While the U.S. government will offer to rebuild, Greensburg will rebuild themself. In fact, there is talk of getting the shovels turning dirt to pour concrete before the fed-money flows in. I expect that will happen. Some civic leaders, while sad that their city took a severe beating, expect to have a very success commerce center before the Cresent City is done.

One of the first in line to commit to coming back: churches. All of them were not spared, yet all of them are going to rebuild. Commerce will return to — in fact the locally owned bank was open. No walls, just a simple teller ready to cash checks, accept deposits — on a simple table and tallying the old fashion way of paper. Utilities are not on in town.

My cousins are staying the course too. They are farmers and town merchants. They promise to return. “Git-R-Done” and “Home with a view” are the signs around town. Git-R-Done for the promise of rebuilding, a home with a view for the suddenly open view skyward.

Pictures are coming, as words cannot describe it all. As noted in LARadio.com, the first item that strikes is the smell of wood from the bare trees and smashed timber from homes.

“See” you later in the broadcast week, digitally delayed from the mid-west.

Chris Carmichael
Editor and Publisher
SDRadio.net

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 15, 2007 at 12:42 pm and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.

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