Volunteering to help Greensburg, KS

Greensburg, Kansas (13 May 2007)

The period of May 4 - 6 2007 saw a tornado outbreak in the US Midwest, one of the most significant outbreaks in recent history. Leading up to the evening of May 4, according to information compiled in Wikipedia on the event, tornado watches were in effect across much of the midwest states. At 8:35pm the first of several Kansas counties were put on tornado alert ahead of a strong supercell thunderstorm. At 9:30pm, storm chasers reported the formation of a tornado to the southwest of Greensburg, a country town with a population of over 1500 which had been on tornado alert for about 20 minutes. At this stage the main tornado also had several satellite tornadoes, and over the next several minutes, grew to an estimated half mile wide, prompting the National Weather Service in Dodge City to issue a rare tornado emergency, the highest alert possible intended for extremely life threatening situations with a large tornado approaching a population center.

At 9:38pm, the tornado, now over a mile and a half wide with estimated winds of 205 mph (330 kmph), hit Greensburg dead-center and proceeded to destroy the town for several minutes. It continued to strengthen as it left the town perimeter, and by the time it dissipated, it left a legacy of a destruction path 22 miles (35 km) long and 1.7 miles in diameter at its widest, 10 dead, 60 injured, and 95% of the town in ruins. Damage assessment the following day prompted the president to declare Kiowa County a disaster zone and the tornado was given an EF5 rating, the first level 5 event since the new EF scale was introduced this year, and the only 5 to have occurred since the infamous May 3 1999 tornado in Moore.

In the aftermath of the tornado the town was completely evacuated within hours as there was no safety from the continuing storms. An hour later and just 20 miles away a second, even bigger but slightly less powerful EF3 tornado 2 miles wide killed a policeman, and the following day another fatality from a 2 mile wide EF3 tornado occurred near Stafford. Some looting occurred in Greensburg and a dusk-till-dawn curfew was imposed, and storms and rain continued to lash the region for several days. The rain soaked the wreckage, and much of what survived the tornado was then flooded or water logged.

Greensburg is 285 miles from where I live in Norman, and during the week I was seriously contemplating heading up there to help out in what was sure to be a huge relief mission. After discussing it with a few people, who mostly thought I was crazy and not serious about driving all that way, one of my friends Mandy (who wants to be a firefighter) was the only person crazy enough to join me. Saturday night I gassed up the Jeep & packed some gear, while Mandy was out clubbing, and went to sleep wondering about what I was going to see the next day. At 5:20am I got up, trod on my sunglasses in the dark, had breakfast and headed up to pick Mandy up from her house in south Oklahoma City at 6am. I almost got in trouble when I got confused by the stupid street names changing and overshot my turnoff to her house by 50m; since it was early in the morning I backtracked the wrong way up the service road, almost got away with it until a car came around the corner and beeped at me, getting the attention of the state trooper at the adjacent gas station whom I hadn't seen before, who was filling up his patrol car and saw the whole thing. I circled through the gas station, sort of waved at him after I noticed him staring at me, he gave a half nod and turned back to his car, probably debating with himself whether or not it was too early to chase down and book a moron in a Jeep.

Driving through northern Oklahoma and southern Kansas on I-35 was great in the fine sunny morning, with fogs over fields glistening with dew and the rivers flowing rapidly as they receded from flood levels. I got hassled at a Kansas toll booth on the interstate by two lady employees who loved my accent, which Mandy thought was hilarious. Stopped for morning tea in a Kansas town where the fuel was relatively expensive but still cheaper than Australia, at $3.16 / gallon. By about 11pm we approached the main intersection of the town to the east of Greensburg, named Haviland. Police had set up a checkpoint and was redirecting traffic north to roads that bypass Greensburg. Mandy and I had a backup plan where if we were asked what our business was, if going to 'help' wasn't enough, she would bung on her best country accent and say we were going to her uncles house to clean up. We got through that checkpoint, and from then on I was on the lookout for anything unusual.

The tall concrete grain elevator which I recognised from aerial shots on the news was visible for miles around, and it marked the approach of the town. We passed a group of motorhomes, and three trucks with mobile houses on their trailers, belonging to owners maybe hoping to become the first to re-settle. A sign informed us of an AM radio station that was broadcasting disaster information, which I turned on. On the perimeter of the town, another police checkpoint was in place, and once again we had to justify our presence. But this time the officer asked what street Mandy's uncle lived in, and after a stupid pause where I looked at Mandy hoping she would say something, I said we were going to call her uncle and find out where he is, and look around. This was apparently good enough for the officer, and he tied a red band around my rear view mirror, and wished me luck. Immediately behind the checkpoint, it was all hustle & bustle. Initially there were probably a hundred cars parked in a field and a huge group of people crowded around a large marquee and walking about, probably the relief mission HQ, or some arrangement for mother's day. I thought for a moment about the mothers who would be celebrating nothing more this mother's day other than being thankful they & their loved ones are alive. I decided that could be our fallback if we couldn't find a way of helping on our own. Driving on to the next intersection, we were confronted by an incredible scene.

I have never been in a disaster zone, and the presentation of destruction around me left me awe struck. There was a bunch of trucks and heavy machinery driving around the highway, in and out of connecting streets, so I had to watch the road and could only take brief looks around me. I turned my camera on and took a bit of footage as I made my way slowly past the hub of heavy machinery work and over to a quieter part of town, and took a right northwards down a random street. I was making mental notes so as to not get lost, because I had correctly guessed long before I got to the town, that there would be no street signs left. It was a week after the event, and though the streets were cleared of debris, there otherwise appeared to be very little sign of progress. But of course, with truckloads of debris being taken away on an hourly basis every day for a week, I realise now that there probably had been loads of progress.

I drove past crumpled cars, with wheels blown out, windows shattered, roofs buckled or torn off, every panel smashed, some on their sides, some stacked on others. Around the cars were piles of rubble, and by rubble I mean the remains of houses utterly destroyed, snapped and broken timber, bright sheets of twisted tin roofing, concrete foundations exposed in places. Streets that would normally be lined with large trees in full spring bloom, now held dark trunks with all but the primary branches snapped off, stripped of bark, standing like ominous sentinels foreboding entry to the hazardous remains of their owner's properties. The naked, snapped trees are a characteristic unique to severe tornado damage, leaves get pulverised in seconds, and in the daylight for a few seconds, a tornado may appear to turn green.

Ahead, an American flag caught my attention, hanging from what looked like a snapped off power pole. I pulled over to the side of the road, turned the radio with the looping disaster information broadcast off, and went to explore a little on foot. The southerly wind, gusting to about 20 knots, kicked up dirt and light rubbish down the street to a height well over your head, so you had to shield your eyes. The sound of the relief effort was ever-present, diesel engines accelerating through the gears, and beeping from reversing trucks. You find the strangest things wandering through debris; amidst smashed chairs and tables, a butter plate undamaged, the tip of a christmas tree, blue tinsel tangled in the wreckage, some plush toys, bathroom products, chopped wood, a street sign. I walked from what was arguably one house pile to another, as no fences remained, the best way to judge properties where the houses were gone was to look for driveways.

I decided to try and hunt down some signs of impact damage, like out of the Twister movie, fence posts flying through doors and stuff. I went over to the most sturdy looking house in the immediate vicinity, which at least had straight walls and part of it's 2nd storey intact. Sure enough, I found exactly what I was looking for, a beam of wood, possibly belonging to a fence or house, rammed clean through the wall near the window, so it was wedged sticking into the room, having blasted away the surrounding wall like a 1ft wide exit wound. I hopped back down into the rubble and found my first souvenir, a small metal watch with a metal band, the links twisted and broken, the face glass gone, but the hour, minute and second hands were still intact. The face said 'HERALA 17 Jewels, Waterproof, Antimagnetic. I slipped it in my pocket just as a man called out from around the side of the house. "May I help you?"
I said "oh, we are just having a look around."
The man said "You shouldn't go in there, there's a sign out the front."
We had walked into the house from the back and hadn't seen the front of the house. From the back , you couldn't tell which way the house faced.
I explained "We're here to help out and were having a look around first."
He pointed to the side and said "Red Cross is organising the relief mission over on the highway."
We started walking out the front and Mandy was following, I explained how we'd seen that area and planned to head back there.
He paused and said "It's just, this is my house."
That came as a shock, and all I could say was "oh" as he stood there looking at his ruined home. He was perhaps in his 50's, with grey hair tied back in a pony tail, a US accent but not very country, he was tall and lean wearing glasses and a cap, in a shirt and jeans torn at the knees. Then I recovered and said "well, we would be all too happy to help you out, if this is your house, if there is anything we can do for you."
Then it was his turn to be shocked. He said "oh...well..." and thought for a few seconds "...actually yeah, I have a bunch of stuff downstairs that I need to get out and load on this trailer, boxes and crates of family stuff, you know."
I offered my hand and said "My name is Jason, this is my friend Mandy, we've come here from Norman." He introduced himself as Gary, and he started talking about the volunteers, how there had been hundreds if not thousands. He said "I'm sorry, I can't help but get a bit choked up, but the response has been incredible." He pulled Mandy and I into a hug and said "god bless you both."

From then on Gary started explaining what his immediate plans were, as he grabbed a torch out of the car and we followed him down the side of his house, through a doorway and down stairs littered with broken glass and strips of wood.The bottom of the stairs was quite dark, and the room to the right was almost pitch dark after the outside light. It was carpeted, but you couldn't really help but walk through the puddle at the bottom of the stairs to get into the room, and since Gary went walking straight through it without caring, I did too. It was a family room in the basement, and he lead us over to a joining section of rooms, and shining the torch on a cramped, little room full of boxes he said "this is where my daughter and I rode it out." He quickly explained what he needed from the room, which was piled on both sides with boxes to the roof, and said he was going to head off to try and find a structural engineer to assess the house to see if it could be saved. A sign out the front he had made had said "do not enter, do not bulldoze".

So Gary shot off and Mandy and I unloaded the boxes. She had the torch and pulled them off the shelves and stacked them out in the family room, while I took them from the family room, through the puddle, up the stairs and out to the trailer. It was only at this time that the shock of being surrounded by debris and destruction wore off and I walked about feeling 'normal', because I had a job to do. We unloaded boxes for maybe an hour and a half, Gary had a lot of stuff, and I just hoped it wasn't junk to him, coz it sure looked like it to me! Didn't take long to prove that I had the better task, it was funny hearing Mandy curse and squeal in the little soaked room when she pulled crates down where water had puddled on top of plastic lids, and this dank stinky water kept pouring over her as she lifted things. We were a bit alarmed at one point, Mandy had pulled something, and suddenly the sound of pouring water started and didn't stop. Turned out to be a false alarm, the roof wasn't about to collapse, just a crate had no lid and was full to the brim with water. It was very heavy, Mandy wasn't sure what to do with it, I said to slosh some of the water out, it's not as if any more damage could be done.

Gary came back as the trailer was almost loaded, only then did I notice that he actually didn't have a car, and was getting lifts from friends and people helping out. He loaded two massive speakers in the trailer, and helped us move some last sodden boxes, and then he asked if we could go for a ride in my car across town to the church, where he could get some bungee cords to tie down the load. So we headed off, and he started telling us about the neighbourhood, asking if we had seen the schools, he would point out where churches stood, the town used to have plenty of churches. He had owned and run an antique store, which was now rubble, but as we drove over to the church, he was waving to everyone he saw, and one fellow walked up to the car so I stopped. They knew each other, as everyone does in a little town like this, and this guy had some antique-ish things that he had nowhere to keep, and was offering them to Gary. Gary is probably on the threshold of a monopoly in a booming industry, for trinkets and antiques that have been through an EF5 tornado, I'm sure there will be a market for them! Gary gave Mandy and I a gift, which he was excited about, he gave us each a 100 year old brick from the church. I thanked him earnestly, but had serious doubts about how I would be able to continue my travels with a brick in tow. But I loaded the two bricks in the boot and changed my mind, thinking it would be a brilliant gift for my flat mate Todd ;)

Gary turned out to be a fascinating bloke, with a good story. He explained with a chuckle how a few years ago, they lived in Vegas, and his wife wanted to move out to Greensburg, for 'a better night life'. Gary's sense of humour and warm, optimistic nature made him instantly likeable. In fact, his optimism was inspiring, he talked fondly of the past, and despite everything that had happened he had grand plans for the future. His wife and son were out of town during the tornado, his wife was involved with Greensburg town marketing, and had the only known copy of the Greensburg town history with her, so it was not lost. Gary had taken his daughter and sheltered in their basement when the warning siren went off, and a short while later, the approach of the tornado was like the roar of a freight train punctuated by crashing thunder. He estimates the tornado was actually over his house for at least a minute and a half. When he emerged onto the scene of chaos, he went across the road calling out the name of the 95 year old lady who lived across the street in a house half collapsed. He called twice, with no answer. The third time he screamed out, and heard a faint reply. He cut almost all of his fingers on plate glass in a door frame trying to get to her, and managed to find her buried under broken furniture and debris. She had bad lacerations to her arm and had lost a lot of blood, and so he tied a tourniquet for her and got her out of there, and looked for a way to get help. They didn't get far on the road, as all roads were blocked with debris, but eventually they made their way out, and near the edge of town they intercepted an ambulance. She made it OK and was fortunately only one of the 60 injured and not 10 dead, quite possibly due to Gary's actions. Gary's fingers were all bandaided and he had stitches, but it didn't hinder him in lifting or anything to do with his hands, which had been working overtime during that week.

When we got back, we tied down his gear with the bungee cords, had lunch, and then he asked if I would like to do a little sightseeing. We started with his house. He said if I wanted a good shot, to follow him. He showed me the living room, where furniture removed from the wall after the storm showed the clean wall contrasting sharply with the wall spattered with dirt and mud. In fact, the entire room, roof included, and all sides were spattered to some degree, eluding to what it is like to have a 200mph breeze comng in your window. He explained how in the wedge of the tornado, all of the leaves, sticks and fine debris flying about at such speed has the effect of sand blasting. He had a 400 year old table & drawers or something which was covered in filth but otherwise undamaged. The kitchen had weird square glass blocks making up the outward wall, and miraculously they were mostly intact, which he explained was much to the disgust of his wife, as they were what she hated most in the house. We headed upstairs, and I was watching my footing closely, checking the structural integrity of the wooden staircase as Gary walked ahead, and when I got to the top, I was shocked to look up suddenly and see blue sky! Infront of me, a large hole existed where a window was, above me, no roof, to my left, a room with no roof and no walls. We turned for the master bedroom, where Gary had a 4 poster bed. I betrayed no hint of surprise when he told me that he had mirrors on the roof of the 4 poster bed, and that one of the 3 panes had lifted up, travelled across the top, down the side of the bed and underneath before shattering. This was evidenced by the fact that the pane, while shattered, was still in a rectangular shape under the bed. We walked over and stepped out his window onto the roof, and made our way along the side of the house. It was sturdy enough, and Gary had apparently already been out here on the roof before. Jumping from one sloped section of the roof to another, we climbed right up to the 2nd story at the front of the house, where a slanted 2m section of wood was all that remained of the 2nd story roof. From this point, I was higher than anything in my immediate vicinity, and level with the tallest remaining structures across town. I took a series of 26 photos for a panoramic shot, keeping a firm footing to withstand the strong southerly wind that was blowing.

Afterwards I headed back down and over to the neighbour's pile to get a photo of Gary's house and where I took the panoramic. There I found the most striking rubble-treasure yet, amidst total carnage, dark and twisted and filthy, was a bright yellow rubber ducky. I took photos of it lying on its side amongst the debris, then picked it up and put it in the back of my car for safekeeping. I'm going to give it to my future kids, and when they're old enough, I'll tell them that their ducky survived one of the strongest storms on earth. Just after I put ducky in the boot a $100 bill blew past me down the road. It was only Monopoly money though!

After lunch, which was my first ever peanut butter & jelly sandwich (not too bad), we made plans to head off. Gary had been visited by a few people who had come over when they saw him there, including the previous owner of the house. The greetings were more than simple hellos, they were more like 'it's so good to see you, glad you're OK'. It wasn't hard to see how rural communities like this bond so closely and pull together in the face of hardship like this. One dude rocked up in a massive canary yellow Hummer with an American flag sticking out the side, and while he talked to Gary, the cutest little girl hopped out of the car & came over to Mandy & I. She was holding an even cuter kitten, which was just chillin in her palm, completely relaxed and peering about with wide eyes, while the little girl patted it and told us all about the kitten being 2 months old, what they were doing with its brothers & sisters, what her Dad was doing here (volunteering).

Mandy & I decided to head off before it got too late, because of our next destination I had to check out on the way home. We said goodbye to Gary, exchanged contact information, and I wished him the best of luck. We did a bit more sightseeing before we left, first heading over to the south end of town, the direction the tornado came from. We passed the theatre, the destroyed schools and smashed school buses, the firies sitting infront of their engines having smoko while their de-roofed base lie behind. I saw a mobile house which appeared to have been lifted up and dropped back down onto a metre high pile of rubble, and while there wasn't a straight wall left in it, it was still sort of intact. 50m off to the left, I saw a wrecked car sitting out in the middle of a field, and another truck in a mini-creek shortly after. Mandy explained to me how it looked similar to the May 3 tornado of 1999, which took out her grandmother's house in Moore. She spent months helping the family clean up. While there was a greater quantity of damage in that tornado, because of the dense population area involved, at least that scene held some houses that remained standing, sometimes right next to others that were blown away to the slab. The word for Greensburg's destruction however was 'complete'. Houses were half-standing at best, and the tornado path encompassed the entire town, leaving no respite to the eye, looking for something, just something that made it untouched.

I went to the encircling road around town hoping to see the swathe of the tornado track in the grass, but the grass had either blown back straight from the winds or the track can't be seen from the ground. Heading back north, to the other side of town, we came to what must have been the edge of the path, where I found the only street sign in town, twisted but standing, and took a photo looking back up Main street.
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Going to Greensburg was a profound experience, you can't help but be filled with empathy towards the people who live there. Seeing Gary choke with emotion as he talked about the volunteer response and people like Mandy and I making special trips to help made it all worthwhile.
To shake Gary's hand in admiration of the optimism he shows when he talks about the future, I left without any worries at all. Greensburg may be all but wiped out, but the spirit of the people is as strong as ever, and I have no doubt the town will quickly become even greater and more wonderful than before. Still, it is a massive undertaking, and I'm glad to have helped in some small way.

Of course, how could I drive all the way up to Kansas and across to Greensburg, without taking a side track through the countryside to a tiny little town made famous by a hollywood blockbuster movie themed on the exact thing I had just witnessed? Yeah, I had to go and check out Wakita, which featured as the disaster zone in the movie Twister, which I'm sure you all have seen. It's like my parent's favourite movie that they watch at least 4 times a year, and it is the one place in Oklahoma that I wanted to see most. The water tower, visible for miles, looks exactly the same as in the movie, and we pulled up near to it and jumped out so I could get my photos. A group of 4 bikers were watching us, and by the time I was done, curiosity got the better of one of them and he came over with his beer and hick accent to find out what on earth we were doing. He was a pleasant young guy named J, who liked his simple name because, in his own words, he liked a simple life. He invited us both over for a beer, and I was like 'um, errr yeah why not!'.

He explained how he and his mates saw us but didn't recognise the car so knew we were from 'out of town', was fascinated to learn I was from further out of town than he could possibly have thought, he was sunburnt to a crisp from mowing grass all weekend, the tear in his jeans exposed half his leg, and he had a friendly innocent disposition. I had trouble understanding his older buddies, especially the grandpa sitting in the chair smoking, didn't understand a single word that came out of his mouth. We had a 'Natural Light' beer, or beer-flavoured water, on the house, and had a fantastic happy hour in the afternoon shade with Wakita locals. Unfortunately, the Twister movie museum was closed for mother's day. It is actually closed most of the time, and only opens when you call the phone number on the door and a lady comes out and opens it up for you. The fellas explained how big the movie was for the town, how the main street (where we were standing) was bustling with people and the town population increased ten fold. The house that collapses, was apparently carefully constructed with hinging parts that swung down in precision timing to create a controlled structural collapse that could be repeated over and over! Everyone ridicules the movie, especially the part where they hang from a water main in an F5 tornado and get a bit of dirt on their face, but they love it all the same.

And that's it! After that we cruised back home doing 80 most the way. A very interesting and rewarding trip. Time to plan the next one, and rest my fingers from typing!

I have put up a few pages on my (incomplete) website, they hold a bunch of photos and video footage that I took on the day. Those pictures are better than my thousand words.

Greensburg, Kansas (13 May 2007)

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-Jason