GREENSBURG, Kan. — When the sirens wailed, Scott Huckriede raced through the early darkness to his 84-year-old mother’s house on Main Street.
They crouched in a concrete bunker in her basement, their backs against a door that would not stay closed. After 15 minutes, it got quiet. They crawled out of the house and into a moonscape of destruction.
“The house was gone. Our neighbor’s house was in our yard,” said Huckriede, who works as a photographer. “I’ll tell you, it’s really eerie to walk out of the home you grew up in and not know where you are.”
Shortly after nightfall one year ago today, the 1,400 residents of Greensburg huddled in cellars and closets as a vicious tornado mauled their town, destroying 95 percent of the buildings. With winds estimated at more than 200 mph, the 1.7-mile-wide twister reduced Greensburg to so many piles of matchsticks. Eleven residents died that night.
But these days, Greensburg is surging with new life, nourished by the waters of the green wave that is flooding the country.
Town leaders have promised to rebuild all civic buildings under the strictest guidelines for energy efficiency. Greensburg’s electricity will be generated by wind turbines, harnessing the same natural power that razed the town.
Residents, too, are rebuilding homes with the latest environmental technology. And businesses are planning one-of-a-kind facilities that emphasize pro-earth principles.
“You want big ideas, start with a big problem, and did we ever have a big problem out here a year ago,” said Mike Estes, the town’s largest private employer.
Aiming for platinum
A year ago Estes posted the costliest claim in his insurer’s history when more than 70 big tractors at his family’s John Deere dealership were destroyed along with a 32,000-square-foot showroom. Today Estes is rebuilding his family’s fourth-generation firm with energy efficiency as a priority.
He’s aiming for a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, or LEED, platinum certification, the highest level for the U.S. Green Building Council’s rating system. The new dealership will have wind turbines supplying energy, a waste oil heating system and skylights to reduce electrical bills. The local General Motors dealership is planning a similar display, set to become a national showcase.
“Once we got over the initial shock, we knew we had to come back, and we knew we had to rebuild differently,” said Estes, who now sells his green and yellow tractors from a cozy double-wide. “I mean what are the odds that a town named Greensburg would have this kind of opportunity? It’s providential.”
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Development program has provided Greensburg residents with $5.8 million in low-interest loans and grants, while private and state funding has reached $5.4 million. Additional money — and vitality — is coming as more rebuild.
Already several green companies are mulling a relocation to the town. All but two of the 68 original businesses have decided to stay. A new incubator will host a dozen small businesses seeking to set roots in Greensburg’s suddenly fertile soil.
“We are meant to be good stewards of what we are given, and we have been given a great opportunity, and we have a responsibility to do this right,” said Kim Alderfer, assistant city administrator for the town where she was born and raised.
Greensburg’s remaining 600 residents are learning the basics of sustainability.
“Look, this is plant-based paint,” said Tom Boyles as he slathered a coat on the recycled wood siding of a new home.
Boyles was doing all right as a remodeling contractor before the tornado. But now there’s nothing to remodel. Before 2008, there hadn’t been a new house built in Greensburg in more than 20 years, he said. This year, the city has issued 131 permits for new homes.
“I’m having to relearn everything,” said Boyles, who hunkered in a coal chute during the big storm. “Remodeling is history. So I’m starting over.”
A smattering of new homes stand alone on Greensburg’s desolate streets. For every new structure, there’s a tarp-blanketed shell of a building, its front door marked with X’s and V’s left by rescue teams. Piles of cars and appliances rust in fields. An array of drab FEMA trailers stands neatly in a field outside town, with buried railcars every few rows providing sanctuaries should a tornado return.
Taking on extra work
Still, Greensburg buzzes with activity. Semis rumble through wide streets, delivering materials to armies of builders. Construction begins at daybreak and continues well after dark. The sole eatery, the Kwik Stop gas station, has a wall of microwaves that rarely sit idle. Teams of volunteers, usually a fresh cadre of 200 or so a week, shovel and clean, whittling piles of bricks down to dust or erecting parks for local kids.
The pursuit of green adds as much as 30 percent to construction costs. And it’s an added layer of rigor for an already challenged town. Green building requires extensive planning and cooperation, especially for LEED certification.
“I thought maybe we could be pushing this too hard, too early,” said Marvin George, pastor of Greensburg’s First Baptist Church, which is rebuilding with solar power and geothermal heat. “I’ve been amazed at how people have embraced it.”
For Scott Eller, it wasn’t a hard decision. Living in his drafty 1960s-era ranch home, heating bills ran up to $400 a month. His new 3,000-square- foot, passive solar geodesic dome home — built with Styrofoam-sandwiched panels — should cost about a dollar a day to heat.
“I knew we needed to do something to reduce our bills, and since we were starting over, it was a no-brainer,” said Eller, who lost his home, his wife’s store, his welding shop and seven vehicles in the tornado.
The first super-green building opened this weekend as part of a celebration that includes a planned visit by President Bush today. The town’s new art center was designed and built by University of Kansas architectural grad students, who worked 18 unpaid hours a day for two months to finish their unique building.
The never-before opportunity to join a movement from its birth and through the design and construction phases is drawing all sorts of green-minded eyes toward Greensburg. Golden’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory was there within a month of the tornado, offering guidance. An Australian company that makes water-conserving toilets donated 400 of its Caroma commodes to homeowners. Arizona’s Evolve company gave 260 of its low-flow showerheads. DuPont will debut building materials in a dozen model homes.
Daniel Wallach, who founded the nonprofit Greensburg GreenTown organization to advise and support the town’s transformation, says it was an easy sell.
“Self-sufficiency is a core value here,” said Wallach, who founded the Colorado Nonprofit Association before moving to a farm north of Greensburg several years ago. “If we can get one of the most conservative states in the country to embrace the green movement, we can go anywhere.”
Jason Blevins: 303-954-1374 or jblevins@denverpost.com
