1. Green Town
When a tornado destroyed Greensburg, Kansas,
residents decided to do something unprecedented—build
the greenest community in rural America.
story by drew Bratcher photography by randy toBias
 downtown greensburg, Kansas, 110 miles from Wichita, eco-friendly
in
houses are going up in plain view of the ruins left by a devastating tornado.
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2. Green Town
 after a tornado destroyed greensburg in may to build a green community, aren’t you?” A But in his first year, Hewitt had encountered before pulling into town. In the hours after
2007, city administrator steve hewitt vowed to
remake the city as a model of sustainability. day later, in the Topeka Statehouse, Sebelius difficulties in reversing the town’s fortunes. the tornado struck, national guardsmen—led
stepped out into the hall to a throng of report- Before the storm, he had puzzled over how to by Kansas adjutant general Tod Bunting—
ers and gave a news conference. “We have an create jobs and bring people back. He knew had conducted search and rescue operations,
opportunity of having the greenest town in that he would never attract folks who were combing the rubble of nearly 800 houses for
rural America,” she said. looking for white collar or even blue-collar jobs. survivors. Unofficial searches had also taken
At the time, Hewitt wasn’t exactly sure Hewitt’s meeting with Sebelius provided an place around town. On Main Street, five
what the term “green” entailed. For many in answer: by putting Greensburg at the cutting blocks from the high school, Kansas state
his community, he knew it would conjure im- edge of sustainability, he could atrract “green- congressman Dennis McKinney and school
ages of hippies eating tofu and living in yurts. collar” jobs at wind plants and other green busi- superintendent Darin Headrick pulled a young
But as he learned more about the green move- nesses—something few places in Kansas could woman and her child from a collapsed house.
ment in architecture—with its emphasis on offer. As Hainje walked the streets, he thought of
eco-friendly housing, sustainability, and new other tornado-ravaged towns: Stockton, Mis-
energy technologies—it sounded less like a lofty With a theme to the recovery Hewitt souri, in 2003; Hallam, Nebraska, in 2004.
ideal and more like a realistic blueprint for his set out to sell the idea to the community. “W e Disasters were nothing new to Hainje, an af-
city’s future. needed some education to happen,” he says. fable giant with a spring in his gait. For 24
Greensburg lies 110 miles west of Wichita. “But once we started talking, I think people re- years, he had worked as a firefighter in Sioux
You get there on a two-lane stretch of U.S. alized that being green and sustainable was re- Falls, South Dakota, before his appointment
Highway 54 that snakes through dusty antique ally what we did growing up. You know, grand- to FEMA in 2001. He had spent much of
towns and sprawling milo fields. The shoulder ma and grandpa didn’t waste anything. They Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf, living out of
is littered with road kill and a rental car in the parking
tumbleweeds. The sky is end- lot of a naval base. He was
less. The clouds are epic. The charged with troubleshoot-
“I think people realized that being
O
wind touches everything. ing between business leaders
Greensburg’s history such as the vice-president
reads like a palimpsest of green and sustainable was really what of Chevron, who had a re-
the plains: founded by D.R.
Green, a swashbuckler who
we did growing up,” Hewitt says. finery in Mississippi, and
federal agencies, and with
ran a stagecoach line to
Wichita; anchored by rail-
“You know, grandma and grandpa chauffeuring dignitaries on
tours of the battered region.
n the morning of may 5, 2007, is gone… We’ve got to find a way to make it
road hands who fed steam
engines from the town’s
didn’t waste anything.” But Hainje’s passion was in
helping small communities
Steve Hewitt, the young city admin- work—come to work every day and get this 100-foot-deep, hand-dug recover. In Greensburg, he
istrator of Greensburg, Kansas, stood thing back on its feet.” well; swelled by an influx of was stunned by the destruc-
before a phalanx of news cameras on Hewitt, who is 36, is tall and sanguine and gas-plant workers a generation ago. jarred their food, put their clothes on the line. tion but heartened by the opportunity.
what had once been Main Street. The speaks with the punchy resolve of a basketball By the ’90s, Greensburg was a city in de- My grandfather tore his shed down and kept According to Hainje, the towns that built
night before, Hewitt had emerged from coach. His plea for help was earnest. He had cline. According to the 2000 census, nearly 30 every piece of wood because he might use it for back successfully were the ones with a theme
his basement with his wife and one-year- $3 million in the city coffers, and the storm percent of the town’s residents were 65 or old- something else, even the nails. And if there was to their recovery effort. In Stockton, a town
old son, Gunner, to a living nightmare. had done $153 million in damage. But what he er. Greensburg High, once a 3-A school with a bent nail, he’d straighten it back out.” whose business district had been wiped out in
In a span of 20 minutes, an EF5 tornado could not have known was that the recovery ef- 30 to 40 students per grade, had become a 1-A Not everyone was on board. McCollum re- 2003, the community had decided to rebuild
had diminished the Kiowa county seat to fort, inaugurated on that day, would not only school with class sizes in the mid-20s. signed as mayor and moved outside of Pratt, the city square with masonry bricks, paying
a ruin, killing 12, injuring dozens, and maiming nearly every home and business within two miles. bring Greensburg back, but birth a new town, When Mayor McCollum hired Hewitt in unable to reconcile the loss of his hometown, homage to the town’s history, and also to in-
It was the largest natural disaster since Hurricane Katrina, 21 months earlier. The tornado mea- the cornerstone of which had always been 2006, he was looking to bring some new en- whose streets he had cruised in a ’55 Chevy in crease the city’s connection to nearby Lake
sured 1.7 miles wide and had 205-mile-per-hour winds. At the Southern Plains Co-Op, on the there—in the first five letters of the city’s name. ergy to town. Hewitt was a hometown boy high school, with plans for a new Greensburg. Stockton. In the weeks following Greensburg,
outskirts of town, workers found car bumpers 100 feet up the grain elevator. with big-city experience. He grew up in Pratt, But Hewitt found allies in residents such as FEMA’s long-term recovery team held four
Gone was Hunter Drug Store, with its classic soda fountain, and the Twilight Theater, with its there Was a remarKable singularity to 20 miles east, with his mother, but his dad Bob Mosier, who was state president of Kansas big-tent meetings, each attended by about
tin ceiling. Gone was the Kiowa County Museum, with its 1,000-pound pallasite meteorite, and Greensburg’s recovery effort, summed up in and grandparents lived in Greensburg. After Resource Conservation and Development and 400 people, where residents made suggestions
the water tower, with its wide green stripes. Gone was Greensburg High, home of the Rangers, one word: sustainability. According to Hewitt, college at Fort Hays State, Hewitt worked in had started a curbside recycling service before about the rebirth of their town.
and the regional hospital, and the thick cedars along Bay Street. Gone were the streetlights, street the idea came from a meeting with Governor parks, recreation, and tourism in Indepen- the storm, and government officials such as Dick The emphasis on green development is evi-
signs, and telephone poles. Gone was Evelyn Kelly, 75, and David Lyon, 48. Bar H Tavern, one of Kathleen Sebelius four days after the storm. dence, Missouri, and later in Mustang, Okla- Hainje, who directs FEMA’s Region VII, which dent in the 86-page “Long Term Community
the few structures left standing, had been turned into a makeshift morgue. After Hewitt and Lonnie McCollum, then the homa. By his own account, he accepted the includes Kansas, Missouri, Iowa, and Nebraska. Recovery Plan” that came out of those meet-
Greensburg was Hewitt’s home, and his employer. “This is a huge catastrophe that’s happened mayor of Greensburg, pledged to rebuild the job in Greensburg thinking it would be a great The day after the storm, Hainje had driven ings. Residents agreed on making sure public
to our small town,” he said to the cameras. “You know, there are 1,400 people in this commu- town, Sebelius took it as a cue. “I see what way to cut his chops in city management be- to Greensburg from Kansas City, idling at facilities, from the new city hall to the high
nity, and I believe 95 percent of the homes are gone. And all my downtown is gone. My home you’re doing,” she told them. “You’re going fore taking a job in a bigger metropolis. the grain elevator to wait out another twister school, were LEED-certified—the highest certi-
42 Wichitacitymag.com • january 2009 PHOTOGraPHy By Larry SMITH january 2009 • Wichitacitymag.com 43

3. Green Town
fication of green buildings granted by the U.S. when FEMA administrator David Paulison folks.” Banks had passed through Greensburg
Green Building Council—and on exploring abruptly closed the office of long-term recov- several times while campaigning for Senator
wind and solar energy. But to implement the ery a year and a half after the storm. “FEMA Pat Roberts and en route to Colorado vaca-
plan, FEMA needed outside help. cannot drive the planning, our mission is to tions with his two daughters. He had spun
support it,” a statement read. “We can only them on the merry-go-round across the park
at a meeting in Wichita days after the do so much and then we look to the city to from the Big Well. He knew that the redevel-
Greensburg tornado, FEMA officials met with embrace and begin planning and managing.” opment of such a rural place would require
Chuck Banks, who directs rural development The decision prompted protests from city of- partnerships. “The resources we needed to
in Kansas for the United States Department of ficials, many of whom cited FEMA’s chronic rebuild Greensburg weren’t in Greensburg,”
Agriculture. Banks is a dealmaker with a dark lateness—such as the dilatory release of a flood Banks says. “They weren’t in Kiowa County or
goatee and an intent gaze who traces his fam- elevation advisory to give homeowners direc- even in that region.” On top of government
ily line to Kansas’ free-state abolitionists. In tion on the height their homes needed to be assistance, the city was going to need help
2005, he had won allies in the Pentagon with from the private sector,  mason earles
and emily schlick-
his apt handling of the 1st Infantry Division’s from nonprofits, from uni- man (at front and
return to Ft. Riley, an army garrison between versities, from churches. back left) moved
Junction City and Manhattan. He had part- to Wichita after
graduating from
nered with the Army—and a host of entities in Within WeeKs of the Washington Uni-
the public and private sector—to find housing, storm, Greensburg was versity last fall.
healthcare, and even daycare programs for bustling with activity. says schlickman,
“it gives us hope
17,000 military and civilian personnel, many The high school gradua- that environmental-
of them with young families. tion took place on the golf ism doesn’t have to
In Wichita, Banks listened as FEMA offi- course on the east side of be hippy of leftist.
it’s just about doing
cials explained what had worked and what had town and was covered by what makes sense.”
failed in New Orleans. In 2003, the Bush ad- Good Morning America. Su-
ministration folded FEMA—which had been perintendent Darin Head-
created by President Jimmy Carter in 1979— rick, whose son was vale- Gulf Port, Biloxi, and Ocean Springs, where re- Since adopting the plan, Greensburg has school,” Schlickman says.
into the Department of Homeland Security. dictorian of the class of ’07, building was at a more advanced stage. Banks’ become a living laboratory for government After she graduated last May, Schlick-
 UsDa’s chuck banks (front left) and former greensburg mayor
Although there had been tornadoes and other lonnie mccollum (center) bow as reverend christa Zapfe leads a guaranteed his teachers jobs goal was simple: to prove “that the communities agencies and green enthusiasts. Architecture man and boyfriend Mason Earles moved to
tempests before September 2005, Hurricane community prayer at a big-tent meeting hosted by fema. for the coming semester, that had a comprehensive master plan were the students from the University of Kansas de- Greensburg to work as unpaid interns for
Katrina was the agency’s and pushed hard to reopen ones that were coming back.” signed and built the 5.4.7 Arts Center, a gal- Greensburg GreenTown, a non-profit started
first major test in its post- the school in a temporary facility in time for Upon their return, Hewitt and the city lery powered by solar panels and wind turbines by Daniel Wallach, who also runs a natural
9/11 incarnation. Katrina the fall. Hewitt, who moved back to town council hired BNIM Architects out of Kansas and made from recycled building materials. food store in Pratt. The couple lives in a base-
had turned calamity into a in July after sleeping on his mother-in-law’s City to draft a plan aimed at taking goals set To bridge the funding gap on the proposed ment with a family that has learned to cook
spectator sport, and in the couch in Pratt for months, had wrangled with out in FEMA’s blueprint and getting down Business Incubator, set to open this month, tofu for their vegetarian guests. Schlickman
round-the-clock coverage, contractors to get electricity back into town a to details. BNIM had gained notoriety in the Hewitt received $400,000 from DiCaprio and and Earles are working on designs for a series
the federal government’s week before classes started. green movement for their design of buildings $1 million from SunChips. In December, of 12 eco-friendly homes in Greensburg that
immediate response had To the south of town, FEMA had set up such as human rights group Heifer Interna- the city became the first in the country to be academic institutions such as the University of
proven to have as many a mini-city of 400 mobile homes. Producers tional’s headquarters in Little Rock, Arkansas, completely fitted with LED streetlights, which Colorado have partnered to build.
fissures as there were cracks from Planet Green, a sister station of the Dis- and the Lewis and Clark State Office Building run on less energy and last longer than regular At a community gathering in the gym at
in the levies around New covery Channel, began filming a documen- in Jefferson City, Missouri. The 157-page plan bulb lights. Greensburg High in October, Schlickman
Orleans. tary series, Greensburg, backed by celebrity ac- for Greensburg, released last May—a year after The city’s efforts caught the attention of stood against the back wall, smiling, as the
The more lasting prob- tor and environmentalist Leonardo DiCaprio. the tornado—moved the town one step closer Emily Schlickman, a 22-year-old from Chi- school’s recycling club—dressed as aluminum
lems came afterwards, When the Quik Shop, a gas station and mini- to building back sustainably. cago who majored in environmental studies foil, milk cartons, and glass—put on a laugh-
as FEMA began work- mart, opened its doors in June, it quickly In it, there are models for energy-efficient at Washington University in St. Louis. Schlick- able skit. Around the gym, residents manned
ing with communities  5.4.7 arts center, named after the date of the greensburg
the became Grand Central Station, with hungry homes along sidewalks and plans for a down- man, a petite blonde with striking green eyes, booths with blueprints for the hospital, the
on long-term recovery. tornado, was designed and built by 22 students from the University residents munching microwaved egg rolls and town Business Incubator, a glorified office space got her first exposure to sustainable living when high school, and other projects. Hewitt gave
FEMA’s public assistance of Kansas. the gallery is powered by wind turbines and solar panels. hot dogs and sipping steaming coffee. The for ten local businesses. The document contains she studied abroad in Japan and saw homeless updates, announcing plans for a major wind
program provides 75 per- Southern Plains Co-Op was back in business plans for burying power lines to protect electric- people living in structures made of wood, grass, farm to the south. Chuck Banks paced in the
cent of funding for the rebuilding of pre-exist- to receive flood insurance—as the true cause in time for harvest. ity in future storms and for developing transpor- and mud—in short, building more sustainably back with arms crossed, stroking his goatee.
ing public structures, and none of the funding for delays. That September, Hewitt and nine Greensburg tation alternatives such as bike-swap programs. than rich city dwellers with the resources to do The packed corrugated metal gym was warm.
cOurTeSy feMa
for new buildings. In New Orleans, finding To Banks, with whom FEMA would partner city and county officials accompanied Banks on It also lays out suggestions for the creation of an so much more. She wrote her thesis about the Together, the crowd sang a spiritual about the
responsible partners in the public and private to help rebuild Greensburg, the crux of the a flash tour of the Gulf. The group drove across agricultural waste site from which new-energy experience but itched for the chance to build prophet Daniel escaping from the lion’s den.
sectors to bridge the funding gap had been debacle was clear. “It sounds to me,” he told eastern Louisiana, awing at deserted buildings companies could glean materials culled from with green materials. “Greensburg was doing Outside, a hard wind drummed, then faded
problematic. The situation reached its nadir them, “like you didn’t connect with the right and trash heaps, and into Mississippi, through Greensburg’s farms for biofuel. things that we had only just learned about in behind a wave of voices. 
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