March 15, 2018 • 43 mins
A tornado forever changes the rural town of Greensburg in the most unexpected way. And we separate ideas and movements from the constraints of politics.
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www.ouramericanapodcast.com / www.bothand.fyi
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Written, edited, and produced by Josh Hallmark
Research Assistance by Torey Griffith
Music by Saito, Chris Zabriskie, Kai Engel, David Mumford, Lee Rosevere, Idmonster / Courtesy of Free Music Archive
This is a Studio BOTH/AND production:
www.ouramericanapodcast.com / www.bothand.fyi
For an ad-free experience or to support the show: www.patreon.com/studiobothand
Written, edited, and produced by Josh Hallmark
Research Assistance by Torey Griffith
Music by Saito, Chris Zabriskie, Kai Engel, David Mumford, Lee Rosevere, Idmonster / Courtesy of Free Music Archive
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Think about that, think about theways that we are all conditioned in our
culture and conditioned into this very rigidbinary system, and how could that possibly
be the case that everybody would fitneatly into those boxes? And the truth
is that they don't. And sowhat is that about? And what does
that experience like? And how canwe change the way that we think and
(00:23):
change our culture to acknowledge that reality. None of us fit neatly into any
boxes. And yet we spend awhole lot of our energy and for some
people just absolutely live their lives inanguish trying to trying to do that,
and we don't have to, andwe don't have to. This is an
Our Americana podcast network production sponsored byPodbean. Our Americana is an independent and
(00:51):
listener funded podcast. To find outhow you can support the show and future
episodes, go to Our Americana podcastdot com. Before we get to the
show, I wanted to let youknow that I'm going on a bit of
a tour. You can catch mein a bunch of other amazing podcasters at
Rumi Con and Charleston Crime Con inNashville, Podcast Movement in Philadelphia, and
(01:15):
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events, go to our Americana podcastdot com and click tour thanks and enjoy
(01:37):
the episode. Why don't we startwith? If you could just generally describe
Greensburg for me as it is nowas it was? How do you want
that? Trained? The world asyou know it, The world you've planned
your life around. Everything you thinkyou know about the world around you can
(01:59):
change in an instant, and thatchange can leave you feeling hopeless, unsure
of where to start, what todo next, or even how to occupy
the foreign place you've suddenly found yourselfin. When I think about finding my
way back to faith or back toseeing America more dynamically, I try to
remind myself that we are more thanjust one thing, more than just a
(02:23):
singular perception or event, that ourideas are not limited to how the world
around us views us. Greensburg,Kansas, reminded me that a place or
a person is never just one thing, and that in times of strife,
a community will come together against allodds and limitations and find a way to
survive. That hope is always there, sometimes in the most surprising of places,
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and that even the things that destroyus can ultimately make us better.
I often kind of feel like Ihave survivor's guilt because I didn't go through
that tornado itself. But my jobas tourism director for this community is to
talk about it every day. Thisis Stacy Barnes. She was born and
raised in Greensburg. It was severalhours away visiting friends the night that it
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changed forever. It was a Fridaynight when the tornado happened, and I
was visiting my brother for the weekendin Manhattan, Kansas, and our sister
lives in this area, and shehad tried to call us, and we
knew there was bad weather, andit's a pretty typical spring in this part
of the world. There's always thunderstormsand bad weather, and it's not unheard
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of to have the sirens go offat least once or twice during storm season.
So we didn't think too much ofit until about I don't know,
ten o'clock, ten thirty maybe oursister called us and I told us what
happened here and that there had beena tornado, and she was headed this
way to see and to find ourparents. And so that point we didn't
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really know anything other than there hadbeen a tornado. So we immediately went
to his apartment and packed stuff upand headed this way, not really knowing
at all what had happened, andtrying to call classmates and other people that
we knew to see if they hadany information. The people were calling us,
you know, just a lot ofunknowns, and cell phone tower here
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south of town was taken out,and so communication was really difficult for people.
We started driving this way and wewere probably about two hours away from
Greensburg when my sister got a callthrough to us. It was really garbled.
I couldn't understand what she was saying. I could just here's a tone
of her voice, and it soundedjust really upset, and I just knew
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that it was not good news.It was on a Friday, it was
May fourth of two thousand and seven, and all during the day, the
National Weather Service and it was onthe radio and TV that there was a
chance of severe storms. As wegot later in the afternoon and early evening,
it went from storm watched to stormwarnings and then tornado watched to tornado
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warnings, and the storm system reallybuilt that afternoon, and it was a
huge system throughout all here in thesouth central Kansas, and it spawned numerous
tornadoes and one of which came acrossthe city of Greensburg and leveled ninety five
percent of the buildings in our communityto rubble. This is Bob Dixon the
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night the tornado hit. He wasworking in his yard after a long day
at work as Greensburg's postmaster. Well, I would say we were very blessed
who had the National Weather Service thatgave all the early warning systems, and
through our TV stations, people reallyheated the warning. And the actual tornado
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hit about nine forty nine forty fiveat night, people were still pretty much
up and watching TV and listening tothe radio, so they were able to
really heed the warning and take shelter, and so we were able to minimize
loss of life, even though wesorely missed the eleven people that we did
lose in the tornado. But thelong story short was in just a matter
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of minutes, we were all homeless, and when we were all coming out
of our shelters. The community spiritand the human nature kicked in, and
you started looking for neighbors and startedaccounting for everybody. And that's what real
community's about, disregarding your own situationand looking for the betterment of taking care
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of other people's lives. As Bobbegan searching through the rubble for friends and
neighbors, Stacy anxiously awaited the callfrom her sister and news on her parents.
Few minutes later, she was ableto get one through and we could
talk just long enough that she said, Mom and Dad are okay. Everything's
gone, but they're fine. Andthen the call dropped, and you try
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to wrap your brain around what thatmeans that everything's gone. It's just impossible
to try to comprehend. And evenyou know, almost eleven years later,
to go back and look at pictures, it's still hard to comprehend that it
really was that bad. And Istood right in the middle of it,
and it's just something that's really hardto understand that a place that you're so
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familiar with, within a matter ofminutes is completely changed. So that night
we drove around through the country roadsand it was probably about three in the
morning. By the time we gotout there and to see my parents for
the first time that night, thelook of just kind of shock, I
guess on all of our faces.And at that time I hadn't actually seen
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town to know, but my sisterand her her husband were still in town
going around looking for people and helpingpeople. And it was probably about five
or so in the morning, andI remember just grilling her with questions of
what was it like, who didyou see and heard, trying to explain
it. And then the next morning, at first light six thirty or so,
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we came into town and there's sucha strange feeling, like I said,
a place that you're so familiar withand know every house almost and what
it looks like, and to feellost in your own town. And most
people here will tell you it wassuch a disorienting feeling to just feel lost
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because everything that was familiar was gone. I don't think it really hit us
until the next morning, when thesun came up and we had a true
indication of the devastation. That morning, Bob and his daughter Stacy stood in
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the middle of downtown looking at allthe debris of the town that was once
their home as help slowly began totrickle in from nearby cities, and the
government SEMA put up a big surfacechance under the tip. We hugged together,
we cried together, we laughed together, we planned together. You know,
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it's such an easy thing to overlook. How do you go from standing
amid just the complete destruction of yourtown and twelve casualties? How do you
start over in that moment? Youknow, I know gradually everyone has to
start over and rebuild, but howdo you transition from suffering that loss to
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rebuilding your town? Well? Ithink that early it's just it's adrenaline.
I think that it really it actuallytook people longer to emotionally deal with the
loss. I think when you're immediatelyfaced with something like this, that adrenaline
carries you through until you hit awall. And I think a lot of
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people here in the community would describethat that not just in the first days,
but really years even of there wasjust so much work to be done.
It was hard to make yourself sitand deal with the loss. And
even today, I think there's stilldays that people have you tornado days that
there are different things that trigger thatstress or but loss, just like anybody
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that has a death in the familyof somebody very close, or experiences any
sort of tragedy. You have gooddays and bad and it doesn't go away.
Grief is a long process that neverI don't feel like is really over
that. Yeah, where do youstart? That's a question that we get
a lot and I think as faras just the cleanup, you start with
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that pile of stuff. It's rightin front of you, and and you
start sifting through it and picking itup and pulling it off, and then
make plans of what you're going tobuild next and what's new, and just
working with what's right in front ofyou and trying not to get overwhelmed by
the big picture. And as acommunity, as a city, we had
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so many projects happening simultaneously and thatsometimes people ask, well, why didn't
you do this, that and theother, and it's like, well,
you don't understand. We had hundredsof projects happening at the same time.
From building new electric system because wehad all the power lines were taken out.
Everything from electricity to a new watertower, to a school, a
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hospital, city and county government buildings, houses, everything. There were hundreds
of decisions that had to be madeon a daily basis, and first just
the cleanup and how do you dothat and where does the stuff go?
And truckload after truckload going out oftown of debris. So it's just a
huge task. And I think thatdealing with what was right in front of
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you that day was how people gotby. What happened next would probably surprise
people. But this little rural dotin the middle of a deep red Kansas
amid the destruction, decided to rebuildas a green city. So what I
find so fascinating. And you mentionedhaving to make plans to rebuild amid actually
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rebuilding, And I don't want toget political, but I do want to
cite some generalizations about Kansas, whichis that it's a fairly conservative state.
So in the midst of this cleanup, you decide to rebuild as a green
city. I wonder because that seemslike something cities and towns spend twenty years
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and lots of research deciding to doand then slowly over time actualizing. And
I'm impressed with this small town inKansas, in the midst of this destruction,
making this decision and then implementing it. What was that like? Well,
I think for us because of whathappened here, we were given a
blank slate, which in a lotof ways made things easier and in a
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way that fear looking at cities thatalready have existing infrastructure and trying to implement
green, sustainable practices that can bemore challenging for us. We had pretty
much a blank slate here in thecommunity with ninety five percent of the town
gone. It allowed us some opportunitiesto take time as a community to vision
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and dream and have new ideas thatin a lot of ways were easier to
implement because we were starting from theground up with everything pretty much, so
we had lots of lots of communitymeetings. We had a big tent in
a park on the east side oftown and for the whole summer we had
church community church services there and communitymeals and meetings, and planners came in
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and helped to facilitate that process tocome together with a long term recovery plan.
And that idea of building back ina sustainable manner was thrown out very
very early. In fact, itwas days after the tornado when that idea
was first thrown out there. Andone thing we try to say that it
was not a political decision. Yes, we are in Kansas, and we
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are definitely a very conservative state andhere in our county very conservative as well
and Republican for the most part.But one thing we try to say that
the decision was not political anyway,and a lot of times people want to
try to make it a political decision, but really for us, it was
just about building back smarter and investingin the future. Sustainability and green mean
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a lot of different things to differentpeople. Sometimes they can have the connotation
with it that you know, peopleexpect, I think, super futuristic buildings,
and we do have some of thatdifferent architecture, but it's also just
about building buildings that are strong,that are very highly insulated, that we
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can afford the utility bills and longterm will be around for future generations.
And sustainability really just means the capacityto endure. And that's what I think
was driving our rebuilding efforts, isthat, you know, we want a
town that will be here one hundredyears from now, buildings that we can
afford to heat and cool in thesummer and the winter, and that for
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future generations, they won't look backat us and say, oh man,
what were they thinking. I lovethat this podcast, to me is very
much about looking at ideas and communitiesthrough a non political lens. And I
think that's so lovely because I thinkas a country we tend to marry the
idea of being eco friendly or greenwith being liberal or democratic. And I
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think it's really lovely that you've beenable to make this about just a community
and not partisan. Yeah. AndI think early, you know, when
that idea first came about, peoplein the community maybe bristled because they thought
that they were like, Oh,that's not us, that's California or whatever.
You know, it's not that's notus. And I think people started
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to understand it, Oh I cansave money on my utility bills, or
oh my house is going to bewarmer in the winter, and just those
sorts of things, you know,when you put a dollar figure to it,
So tell me what exactly you didand how you went about doing it
that would qualify the rebuild as green. Well, one thing that was done
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pretty quickly was our city council adopteda resolution in December two thousand and seven,
so the tornado was made in twothousand and seven, and they passed
a resolution that the city would tryto rebuild all of their facilities to Lead
Platinum certification. Lead is a buildingrating system that is a program of the
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US Green Building Council and it ispoint based, so depending how your building
is constructed, you get points,and it's really a way to quantify how
green you are. So when somebodyasks, you could say, well,
this building is Lead Platinum, whichis the highest level of certification. So
it's a way for us as acity to quantify how green we are.
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That was something that you know,if we're going to do it, how
do we show that we're doing it. So that idea came about to try
to build study facilities to Lead Platinumcertification, and other facilities here in town
followed suit. The hospital and theschool, and our John Deer dealership all
built to Lead Platinum levels. Andthe county Courthouse survived the tornado but it
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was able to be renovated and itis Lead gold. So there's really a
way as a community to quantify howsustainable, how green we we rebuilt.
All of our energy in Greensburg iswind energy. We have a wind farm
south of town that our electricity comesfrom, so that's one way that as
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an entire community. We can saythat we're sustainable is that all of our
electricity is wind energy. That hasalso afforded us very stable energy prices here.
Our electric rates have not changed ina very long time. We have
a lot of water saving features here. We don't get a lot of rain
and a lot of moisture, sowater is definitely a very precious resource that
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we try to conserve, and betweenlow flow fixtures and our homes and public
buildings, those things help to savewater also. But nothing's perfect by any
means, and we'll be the firstto tell you that we're kind of a
living laboratory and a lot of waysthat different companies came in and either donated
or discounted different products for us totry. And nothing's perfect, and being
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in rural part of the country,sometimes finding people to work on these different
things like wind turbans proves to bea challenge just because we are so rule
here. So we've run into someof those maintenance kind of issues now that
we're ten eleven years out and someof the buildings, some of the different
systems have needed some maintenance. Sothat actually reminds me, you know,
it's been ten years and prior toall this, as you mentioned previously,
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you were just kind of a smallMiddle America town, and now you've kind
of been put on the map.I have to wonder what that's like for
you in your town all of asudden being in the spotlight. I will
say I listened to the Marfa episodethat you did, and I drew a
lot of parallels between us and them. I thought it was very interesting that
just the media and what that doesand the perception I guess of your community
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from the outside versus what it iswhen you've actually come and visit. You
know, the media is here withinminutes after the tornado, and it definitely
took our small town and thrust itinto a national and international spotlight. Really,
we had light trucks here for weeksthat broadcast live from Greensburg all over
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the country from CNN, the FoxNews, NBC, ABC, all the
different affiliates, so immediately, ashappens in disasters, there were cameras here
and that was also disorienting, justnot being used to that spotlight on our
community. But also I think wesought as an opportunity to show the world
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who we are and that we weregoing to come back. Over the next
few months, as Greensburg started torebuild, Bob made the decision to run
for mayor on the Republican ticket exactlya year after that tornado touchdown and what
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could only be described as a landslide. Bob was elected and as mayor,
rebuilding became so much more than justgoing green. It became about community and
conservation. It was more than thedecision to go green, is how do
we be sustainable? How do webuild a community to less lifetimes like our
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ancestors built community for us, andgreen was part of that. When people
were planning there and designing their newhomes, we needed to make sure that
they had all the information available tothem of data, the art, building
products, doors, insulation, buildingmaterials that they could utilize and be within
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their budget that they had, butbe as green as they could be of
as energy fishing, and so wedid more on the educational side than mandating
anything from the city. What wasthe general reception within Greensburg like to making
these changes, Well, everyone intown to built a homer business back,
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built back greener than by far thanwas there before, and even the ones
that weren't totally on board were stillbeing sustainable and building green because through education
and through an agreement with the Kansashome Builders Association, and they would come
out and we would work with themand they would work with us a collaboration,
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and we didn't even have contractors saidwell, I ain't building that green
stuff because my dad didn't build itthat way and my granddad didn't build it
that way, when in fact,because of higher energy costs at the time
of the tornado, people were focusingon insulation, good quality doors and windows,
utilizing the natural daylighting that you couldin your home. All those basic
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principal practices of our pioneering ancestors usedwhen they settled this area. So even
if there was people that thought theyweren't part of the movement, they actually
were. You make a business case, sports, and the business case is
I'm going to lower my energy costsand at the same time maintain property valuation
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of good strong structures. So inthat whole process, it's about a business
case, and that's what people made. They built as green as they could
with the green they had available.So going back to that tent, which
I think for all intents and purposeskind of became your community center. The
Tornado and the rebuild put you ina unique position of giving your community such
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a profound and active voice in therebuilding of their town. I have to
wonder how that impacted relationships within thetown and just with Greensburg, the ability
could meet altogether as a community.Remember there was no buildings left in town,
schools, churches, anything, Sowe'd have community church service together on
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Sunday, and after the church servicethere was some organization depending upon the week
that would have a meal for everybody, and then we would have some meetings
and we'd meet other days in theweek. But more than anything, I
think the key was it started ourhealing process as a community. That we
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were able to gather together and finda way to reason together and find a
way to come to common ground ofhow to move forward. And it was
based on our character, our valuesare more not a plan brought to us
from the outside that says this iswhat you have to do. It was
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something that we decided to do.And when you do that as a community,
you have better buy in and youget a whole lot better results.
And if someone just comes and says, hey, here's a plan, I
think it'll work for you that's whatyou need to do. That's interesting and
I think it's a question a lotof people are asking, is how do
we spread good ideas without mandating goodideas? Well. I think that more
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than anything, there has to beclarity. It can't be elected officials that
decide, oh, we're going todo something. It has to be community
driven, and it has to bebased on the character of that community and
not some ideology. And it hasto transcend political parties. It has to
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be about the community, and that'swhen you find that good, solid decisions
are made. We're just called tobe environmental stewards, but at the same
time we're called to be financial stewards. Also. I can build the greenest
building in the world that's totally offgrid, but if I can't afford to
live in it, we don't havea sustainable community because we don't have people.
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So it's about the triple bottom line. You have to have business,
you have to have environmental stewardship,and it's about the people. So when
you look at all that together,the triple bottom line, then that's what
makes it work. You can't focuson any one leg as a three legged
step, or it falls over whatI think is so lovely and unique about
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this, And I don't really wantto talk about politics, but I do
want to talk about our relationships betweenideas and politics. And you know,
I think it's fair to say mostof our country would consider green and eco
architecture and eco movements as being avery democratic foundation. And I think you
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go to rural Kansas, which islargely Republican, and you take this idea
and make it work in a meaningfulway for that community, and it's just
an excellent bipartisan marriage of ideas.I couldn't agree with you more. And
the problem that we've had is we'vetried to make it politics and it ends
up as a political football is kickfrom one end of the field to the
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other, but nothing's ever done aboutthe environment. We choose upsides, we
call one side deniers and we callthe other side extremists. We don't find
common ground for an honest, opendialogue to come together for real solutions to
real problems. And I think thatthat's what we have to do. Is
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everybody going to be happy. Noteverybody in Greensburg was happy the direction we
took, but by coming to aconsensus and talking about it, and listening
to all voices and understanding that themost important thing in any conversation is you
have to listen. Conversation isn't justtalking, and we have too much of
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that at the federal and state levelright now. Is way too much talking
and not enough listening. And Iunderstand you've become a bit of a steward
for the government in green cities andgoing green, and I imagine bringing some
of the conversations we've had two stateand federal level. Well, yes,
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we've been able to as a wholecommunity and not just me, but many
people have been able to speak togroups all over and just spread that this
is just about making a difference wherewe're planted. We're people of conservation values,
not conservative or liberal on saying,conservation values taught by our parents and
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grandparents. If you take care ofthe land, it will take care of
you. And another guiding principle thatwe were always taught in rural America was
leave it better than you found it. And when you take those basic principles,
that basic foundation, those roots,then it all clicks together that yes,
what we're called to be environmental stewardsand not get caught up in all
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the other extraneous conversation that goes onthat really doesn't end up being productive at
all. Rebuilding of Greensburg and thechanges that came with it started bringing new
faces to town. Two thousand andeight, when the recession hit. I'd
had a nice office job, butI got laid off from there. At
the same time, my vehicle wasin the shop. Without a job,
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I couldn't afford to get it out, and I couldn't afford rent. So
I decided to just look for awhole new lifestyle, and I went online
looking for overseas volunteer opportunities. Quicklyrealized most of those required you to pay
your own way to go, whichwasn't going to work in my situation.
Somehow, I came across many NightHousing who was building low income housing in
Greensburg, and I talked to them. They were looking for volunteers, and
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basically I said, if you canfeed me and give me a place to
stay, I'll come out and volunteerfor a year and help build houses.
So I came out December of twothousand and eight, and I stayed I
think till May of two and ten, and that time we built about twenty
six different houses. My name isMike macbeth. I'm originally from Phoenix,
Arizona, and I lived in Greensburg. It was definitely a culture shock for
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me coming from Phoenix. I cameinto town it was about one in the
morning and just driving around and seeingthe destruction. It had been about a
year since the tornado hit, butthere was still a lot of signs of
the tornado, metal wrapped around trees, and a lot of temporary housing set
up all over the place. Thehospital was a tent. It was definitely
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a surreal thing to walk into.But what I quickly found was the community
part of it was just amazing.Everybody was helping everybody, and that's what
really made me fall in love withGreensburg. What surprised you the most.
There were a lot of surprises.Yeah, you hear about small town America,
especially here in Kansas in the BibleBelt, you have a certain assumption
about the way things are. Butthe community was really the best part,
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and it just blew my mind becauseyou know, growing up in Phoenix,
with so many people being around you, you're always paranoid. All your doors
are locked. Coming out here,when I started working with Manni housing.
They gave me a pickup truck aroundtown, and the first couple of days
I would lock the truck up andtake the keys with me, and they
were like, no, no,just leave the keys in the truck because
(31:07):
somebody else might need it. SoI started doing that. That was very
hard to do it first, andone day I woke up and the truck
was gone. I started freaking outbecause this truck I'm responsible for is gone,
trying to figure out what to doabout that, and a few minutes
later, the guy pulls up said, hey, I need to move some
lumber, so I've already truck.And that was just kind of the feeling
all over town. I actually witnessedone guy. He came into the store
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we have here in town and heran out of gas about a half mile
outside of town, and another guyjust threw him the keys to his truck
and said bringing back when you're donewith it. And later I asked him
if he knew that guy, andhe had no clue who he was.
He just wanted to help him out. And those kinds of stories were all
over the place, and just seeingthat time and time again, really it
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really changed me. I was justI wanted to be a part of it.
Our community is continuing to grow,new homes springing up every little bit,
and so our population is growing.But the exciting thing about that is
the largest grades in our school systemby numbers are kindergarten through third grade.
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So that tells us that we havea lot of more younger people in the
community than we've had in the past, which really makes us sustainable for the
long term when you figure population becauseof that young population. And what was
Greensburg like before the tornado hit Greensburgwas an aging community. Rural America has
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done a very poor job of keepingthe youth in the community, and this
has been going on for decades.Our biggest export has been our youth,
sent them off to great institutions oflearning and they got jobs elsewhere. But
that is totally changed now. We'reseeing more people being able to either work
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from home or startup startup businesses,and so that's exciting. But that's the
change that we have seen is froman older, aging community to a lot
younger community. Now. When wewere done building, there run a lot
of job opportunities. So I left, went back to Phoenix, ended up
out in La when I got tothe point where I was working remotely,
(33:22):
I decided to move back to Greensburg. And you're in the digital tech industry,
I imagine that would take a lotfor you to move from LA,
where there's tons of jobs and tonsof opportunities, to a tiny town in
Kansas. Yeah, it's actually kindof funny. In LA. You know,
you're a small fish and a reallybig pond. And I actually struggled
(33:43):
for a long time to find workout there that was not a four hour
commute each day or not with aton of competition. So moving to Greensburg,
where there was a big void oftechnical expertise, actually set me up
to be able to become like thetech guy around town. How has this
experience dance from your need to finda place that would work for you to
(34:05):
helping rebuild the community to your eventualreturn. How has that changed you?
It's changed me quite a bit.Back before I ever did any volunteer work,
I was completely happy just being thequiet guy on the outside, go
to work, go home and playvideo games and be done. And now
the initial volunteer experience really opened upmy eyes to how much of an impact
(34:30):
a single person can make in asituation like this. After leaving, I
got involved in a lot of othervolunteer activities. I would work with the
Salvation Army out in Phoenix at theirhydration stations, handing out wander to homeless
people, food drives during Thanksgiving andChristmas, all that kind of stuff.
And the more I got involved,I realized the happier I was, the
(34:50):
more I can give back to otherpeople. It made a big difference.
So now I'm a totally opposite personas I was from before I came out
here. I'm involved in everything asmany groups as I can be, and
my days are filled from sunrise atsunset. So yeah, it's been a
big, big change to me personally. So I think it could be mutually
(35:12):
agreed upon that Greensburg is a stronger, better community now than it was eleven
years ago. But I wonder inthat change, is there a sense of
loss. There's always a sense ofloss. We've had We had people that
wanted to build back Greensburg just theway it was because that is what they
(35:34):
knew, that was stability in theirlives. When you lose everything from either
a flood or tornado or earthquake orwhatever, and the only thing you have
left is to close and the shueyou have on. It doesn't matter how
much money you have in the bankor how many vehicles you had, because
they're gone. But what you dohave is each other. So what people
(35:54):
wanted is you need some sense ofstability. And some of that stability was
Hey, let's just build it backto way it was. I just wanted
the way it was. But inour conversations we say, no, we
can do better than just the wayit was. There's some things that we
would want to change. Now,let's have that honest, open dialogue.
(36:17):
What would we make different now thatwe have the opportunity? What could we
change that will be better for futuregenerations? And it's all about how do
we make it better for future generations? How has this experienced changed you?
(36:37):
Well, tremendously because it's made meand I think a lot of people really
not only dealing with disaster, butunderstanding that stuff is just stuff. We
still have our life, but amore inner thought process of taking care of
what we've been blessed with, ofthe resources that we have available, of
(37:00):
living within the means that we haveavailable, and knowing that it is about
community if we're going to survive,it has to be driven by the real
community thought process. And I've spokenall over and I've heard them tell me
(37:21):
in major metropolitan areas well, we'renot a small community. And I said,
yeah, you are. You arejust a bunch of small communities in
a geographical city limit. And howdo you deal with that? And the
key is you have to decide whatis the character of your little community there,
(37:42):
and are you willing to be informed, involved and engaged in the processes
of that community, And are youdoing anything for the youth and the younger
people in the community to have thembeing actively involved in those processes, Because
that's the future of your community is. And that's the beauty of Greensburg right
(38:04):
now is we have a tremendous amountof population that is under forty and they're
really involved in the community. Andso now it's time for us older citizens
to turn some of this over tothem. Still be able to be there
and coach and minium, but say, hey, this is your community for
your kids and your grandkids now.And I think too many times we think
(38:29):
we have to be in charge tillthe day the funeral director comes and gets
us and If that's the case,then you have a dying community because you've
done nothing to emulate to the youthof the community what community values are about,
what public services about, what civilityis about. Because those are our
(38:54):
future elected leaders, and that's whywe need to be mentoring them and encouraging
them. And here in Greensburg,they're stepping up to the plate. So
that's very rewarding. That's fantastic.You know, on a personal level,
I am one of those city liberals, and it's really wonderful for me to
(39:19):
see movements and ideas not be constrainedwithin one political party. I think in
a time where a lot of usfeel a little hopeless, it gives us
all a little bit of hope thatthere is a middle ground and that that
middle ground can be a thriving place. Well. And Josh, that middle
ground is simply the ground that hasto be had through conversation and willing to
(39:43):
admit that my ideology isn't perfect andthat maybe there are some other ideas out
there that need to be looked atand implemented. That's best for everyone.
And I know that that can seempretty pie sky talk at times. But
if we don't start doing that.Our youth is still going to continue to
(40:06):
see the polarization that we have now, and what hope is there for them
to make a difference if they justkeep seeing polarization of ideologies. One thing
we have to remember is we stillhave to treat each other with dignity and
respect. We can agree to disagree, but we can still have a relationship
(40:28):
and still be able to have thatdialogue. Greensburg now has the most LEAD
certified buildings per capita in the world. The town runs almost entirely on solar
panels and wind turbines, so Greensburgis quite literally using the wind that destroyed
(40:50):
it to now rebuild and sustain it. To check out Mayor Dixon's ted talk
on rebuilding Greensburg with sustainable energy,head to the Greensburg, Kansas Show Notes
at www dot our Americana podcast dotcom. And when you're done with that,
(41:12):
check out this other indie podcast thatI love, Hey It's Me How
You Are would Pretend Radio? Icontinue to explore the concept of people pretending
to be someone else, Like Carl, who comes from a long line of
(41:34):
con artists. My father told meat a young age he says Carl.
The two easiest things to sell anybodyanything that will prove their looks and anything
that will make them money. Andthat's what you want to sell. But
guess who else I have on theshow, the FBI agent who busted him.
Oh yeah. I also started doinga little digging and found this whole
(41:55):
community of parents who are making theirkids drink bleach to cure them from their
autism. She said that parasites arecausing autism and the only way to get
rid of autisms to kill the parasiteswith this solution. So parents are giving
it to their children and they're havingsouls breakout on their children's arms. They
are having a bow lining come outof their children. Awsome. I talked
(42:21):
to a millionaire whose life was destroyedby a con man but then ended up
becoming a carn artist herself. Plus, I tell a story I don't like
to talk about often. It's mypersonal encounter with a psychopath. Subscribe to
Pretend Radio wherever you get your podcasts.
Think about that, think about theways that we are all conditioned in our
culture and conditioned into this very rigidbinary system, and how could that possibly
be the case that everybody would fitneatly into those boxes? And the truth
is that they don't. And sowhat is that about? And what does
that experience like? And how canwe change the way that we think and
(00:23):
change our culture to acknowledge that reality. None of us fit neatly into any
boxes. And yet we spend awhole lot of our energy and for some
people just absolutely live their lives inanguish trying to trying to do that,
and we don't have to, andwe don't have to. This is an
Our Americana podcast network production sponsored byPodbean. Our Americana is an independent and
(00:51):
listener funded podcast. To find outhow you can support the show and future
episodes, go to Our Americana podcastdot com. Before we get to the
show, I wanted to let youknow that I'm going on a bit of
a tour. You can catch mein a bunch of other amazing podcasters at
Rumi Con and Charleston Crime Con inNashville, Podcast Movement in Philadelphia, and
(01:15):
pottern Love in New Orleans. PotternLove is a podcast convention created by listeners
for listeners. Our Americana listeners canget a pretty sweet discount by using the
promo code Americana. To find outmore about Pottern Love and all these other
events, go to our Americana podcastdot com and click tour thanks and enjoy
(01:37):
the episode. Why don't we startwith? If you could just generally describe
Greensburg for me as it is nowas it was? How do you want
that? Trained? The world asyou know it, The world you've planned
your life around. Everything you thinkyou know about the world around you can
(01:59):
change in an instant, and thatchange can leave you feeling hopeless, unsure
of where to start, what todo next, or even how to occupy
the foreign place you've suddenly found yourselfin. When I think about finding my
way back to faith or back toseeing America more dynamically, I try to
remind myself that we are more thanjust one thing, more than just a
(02:23):
singular perception or event, that ourideas are not limited to how the world
around us views us. Greensburg,Kansas, reminded me that a place or
a person is never just one thing, and that in times of strife,
a community will come together against allodds and limitations and find a way to
survive. That hope is always there, sometimes in the most surprising of places,
(02:49):
and that even the things that destroyus can ultimately make us better.
I often kind of feel like Ihave survivor's guilt because I didn't go through
that tornado itself. But my jobas tourism director for this community is to
talk about it every day. Thisis Stacy Barnes. She was born and
raised in Greensburg. It was severalhours away visiting friends the night that it
(03:15):
changed forever. It was a Fridaynight when the tornado happened, and I
was visiting my brother for the weekendin Manhattan, Kansas, and our sister
lives in this area, and shehad tried to call us, and we
knew there was bad weather, andit's a pretty typical spring in this part
of the world. There's always thunderstormsand bad weather, and it's not unheard
(03:35):
of to have the sirens go offat least once or twice during storm season.
So we didn't think too much ofit until about I don't know,
ten o'clock, ten thirty maybe oursister called us and I told us what
happened here and that there had beena tornado, and she was headed this
way to see and to find ourparents. And so that point we didn't
(04:00):
really know anything other than there hadbeen a tornado. So we immediately went
to his apartment and packed stuff upand headed this way, not really knowing
at all what had happened, andtrying to call classmates and other people that
we knew to see if they hadany information. The people were calling us,
you know, just a lot ofunknowns, and cell phone tower here
(04:20):
south of town was taken out,and so communication was really difficult for people.
We started driving this way and wewere probably about two hours away from
Greensburg when my sister got a callthrough to us. It was really garbled.
I couldn't understand what she was saying. I could just here's a tone
of her voice, and it soundedjust really upset, and I just knew
(04:46):
that it was not good news.It was on a Friday, it was
May fourth of two thousand and seven, and all during the day, the
National Weather Service and it was onthe radio and TV that there was a
chance of severe storms. As wegot later in the afternoon and early evening,
it went from storm watched to stormwarnings and then tornado watched to tornado
(05:12):
warnings, and the storm system reallybuilt that afternoon, and it was a
huge system throughout all here in thesouth central Kansas, and it spawned numerous
tornadoes and one of which came acrossthe city of Greensburg and leveled ninety five
percent of the buildings in our communityto rubble. This is Bob Dixon the
(05:34):
night the tornado hit. He wasworking in his yard after a long day
at work as Greensburg's postmaster. Well, I would say we were very blessed
who had the National Weather Service thatgave all the early warning systems, and
through our TV stations, people reallyheated the warning. And the actual tornado
(05:56):
hit about nine forty nine forty fiveat night, people were still pretty much
up and watching TV and listening tothe radio, so they were able to
really heed the warning and take shelter, and so we were able to minimize
loss of life, even though wesorely missed the eleven people that we did
lose in the tornado. But thelong story short was in just a matter
(06:23):
of minutes, we were all homeless, and when we were all coming out
of our shelters. The community spiritand the human nature kicked in, and
you started looking for neighbors and startedaccounting for everybody. And that's what real
community's about, disregarding your own situationand looking for the betterment of taking care
(06:46):
of other people's lives. As Bobbegan searching through the rubble for friends and
neighbors, Stacy anxiously awaited the callfrom her sister and news on her parents.
Few minutes later, she was ableto get one through and we could
talk just long enough that she said, Mom and Dad are okay. Everything's
gone, but they're fine. Andthen the call dropped, and you try
(07:11):
to wrap your brain around what thatmeans that everything's gone. It's just impossible
to try to comprehend. And evenyou know, almost eleven years later,
to go back and look at pictures, it's still hard to comprehend that it
really was that bad. And Istood right in the middle of it,
and it's just something that's really hardto understand that a place that you're so
(07:32):
familiar with, within a matter ofminutes is completely changed. So that night
we drove around through the country roadsand it was probably about three in the
morning. By the time we gotout there and to see my parents for
the first time that night, thelook of just kind of shock, I
guess on all of our faces.And at that time I hadn't actually seen
(07:56):
town to know, but my sisterand her her husband were still in town
going around looking for people and helpingpeople. And it was probably about five
or so in the morning, andI remember just grilling her with questions of
what was it like, who didyou see and heard, trying to explain
it. And then the next morning, at first light six thirty or so,
(08:20):
we came into town and there's sucha strange feeling, like I said,
a place that you're so familiar withand know every house almost and what
it looks like, and to feellost in your own town. And most
people here will tell you it wassuch a disorienting feeling to just feel lost
(08:41):
because everything that was familiar was gone. I don't think it really hit us
until the next morning, when thesun came up and we had a true
indication of the devastation. That morning, Bob and his daughter Stacy stood in
(09:01):
the middle of downtown looking at allthe debris of the town that was once
their home as help slowly began totrickle in from nearby cities, and the
government SEMA put up a big surfacechance under the tip. We hugged together,
we cried together, we laughed together, we planned together. You know,
(09:28):
it's such an easy thing to overlook. How do you go from standing
amid just the complete destruction of yourtown and twelve casualties? How do you
start over in that moment? Youknow, I know gradually everyone has to
start over and rebuild, but howdo you transition from suffering that loss to
(09:48):
rebuilding your town? Well? Ithink that early it's just it's adrenaline.
I think that it really it actuallytook people longer to emotionally deal with the
loss. I think when you're immediatelyfaced with something like this, that adrenaline
carries you through until you hit awall. And I think a lot of
(10:09):
people here in the community would describethat that not just in the first days,
but really years even of there wasjust so much work to be done.
It was hard to make yourself sitand deal with the loss. And
even today, I think there's stilldays that people have you tornado days that
there are different things that trigger thatstress or but loss, just like anybody
(10:33):
that has a death in the familyof somebody very close, or experiences any
sort of tragedy. You have gooddays and bad and it doesn't go away.
Grief is a long process that neverI don't feel like is really over
that. Yeah, where do youstart? That's a question that we get
a lot and I think as faras just the cleanup, you start with
(10:56):
that pile of stuff. It's rightin front of you, and and you
start sifting through it and picking itup and pulling it off, and then
make plans of what you're going tobuild next and what's new, and just
working with what's right in front ofyou and trying not to get overwhelmed by
the big picture. And as acommunity, as a city, we had
(11:18):
so many projects happening simultaneously and thatsometimes people ask, well, why didn't
you do this, that and theother, and it's like, well,
you don't understand. We had hundredsof projects happening at the same time.
From building new electric system because wehad all the power lines were taken out.
Everything from electricity to a new watertower, to a school, a
(11:41):
hospital, city and county government buildings, houses, everything. There were hundreds
of decisions that had to be madeon a daily basis, and first just
the cleanup and how do you dothat and where does the stuff go?
And truckload after truckload going out oftown of debris. So it's just a
huge task. And I think thatdealing with what was right in front of
(12:03):
you that day was how people gotby. What happened next would probably surprise
people. But this little rural dotin the middle of a deep red Kansas
amid the destruction, decided to rebuildas a green city. So what I
find so fascinating. And you mentionedhaving to make plans to rebuild amid actually
(12:26):
rebuilding, And I don't want toget political, but I do want to
cite some generalizations about Kansas, whichis that it's a fairly conservative state.
So in the midst of this cleanup, you decide to rebuild as a green
city. I wonder because that seemslike something cities and towns spend twenty years
(12:50):
and lots of research deciding to doand then slowly over time actualizing. And
I'm impressed with this small town inKansas, in the midst of this destruction,
making this decision and then implementing it. What was that like? Well,
I think for us because of whathappened here, we were given a
blank slate, which in a lotof ways made things easier and in a
(13:15):
way that fear looking at cities thatalready have existing infrastructure and trying to implement
green, sustainable practices that can bemore challenging for us. We had pretty
much a blank slate here in thecommunity with ninety five percent of the town
gone. It allowed us some opportunitiesto take time as a community to vision
(13:35):
and dream and have new ideas thatin a lot of ways were easier to
implement because we were starting from theground up with everything pretty much, so
we had lots of lots of communitymeetings. We had a big tent in
a park on the east side oftown and for the whole summer we had
church community church services there and communitymeals and meetings, and planners came in
(14:00):
and helped to facilitate that process tocome together with a long term recovery plan.
And that idea of building back ina sustainable manner was thrown out very
very early. In fact, itwas days after the tornado when that idea
was first thrown out there. Andone thing we try to say that it
was not a political decision. Yes, we are in Kansas, and we
(14:22):
are definitely a very conservative state andhere in our county very conservative as well
and Republican for the most part.But one thing we try to say that
the decision was not political anyway,and a lot of times people want to
try to make it a political decision, but really for us, it was
just about building back smarter and investingin the future. Sustainability and green mean
(14:46):
a lot of different things to differentpeople. Sometimes they can have the connotation
with it that you know, peopleexpect, I think, super futuristic buildings,
and we do have some of thatdifferent architecture, but it's also just
about building buildings that are strong,that are very highly insulated, that we
(15:07):
can afford the utility bills and longterm will be around for future generations.
And sustainability really just means the capacityto endure. And that's what I think
was driving our rebuilding efforts, isthat, you know, we want a
town that will be here one hundredyears from now, buildings that we can
afford to heat and cool in thesummer and the winter, and that for
(15:31):
future generations, they won't look backat us and say, oh man,
what were they thinking. I lovethat this podcast, to me is very
much about looking at ideas and communitiesthrough a non political lens. And I
think that's so lovely because I thinkas a country we tend to marry the
idea of being eco friendly or greenwith being liberal or democratic. And I
(15:56):
think it's really lovely that you've beenable to make this about just a community
and not partisan. Yeah. AndI think early, you know, when
that idea first came about, peoplein the community maybe bristled because they thought
that they were like, Oh,that's not us, that's California or whatever.
You know, it's not that's notus. And I think people started
(16:17):
to understand it, Oh I cansave money on my utility bills, or
oh my house is going to bewarmer in the winter, and just those
sorts of things, you know,when you put a dollar figure to it,
So tell me what exactly you didand how you went about doing it
that would qualify the rebuild as green. Well, one thing that was done
(16:37):
pretty quickly was our city council adopteda resolution in December two thousand and seven,
so the tornado was made in twothousand and seven, and they passed
a resolution that the city would tryto rebuild all of their facilities to Lead
Platinum certification. Lead is a buildingrating system that is a program of the
(17:00):
US Green Building Council and it ispoint based, so depending how your building
is constructed, you get points,and it's really a way to quantify how
green you are. So when somebodyasks, you could say, well,
this building is Lead Platinum, whichis the highest level of certification. So
it's a way for us as acity to quantify how green we are.
(17:25):
That was something that you know,if we're going to do it, how
do we show that we're doing it. So that idea came about to try
to build study facilities to Lead Platinumcertification, and other facilities here in town
followed suit. The hospital and theschool, and our John Deer dealership all
built to Lead Platinum levels. Andthe county Courthouse survived the tornado but it
(17:48):
was able to be renovated and itis Lead gold. So there's really a
way as a community to quantify howsustainable, how green we we rebuilt.
All of our energy in Greensburg iswind energy. We have a wind farm
south of town that our electricity comesfrom, so that's one way that as
(18:10):
an entire community. We can saythat we're sustainable is that all of our
electricity is wind energy. That hasalso afforded us very stable energy prices here.
Our electric rates have not changed ina very long time. We have
a lot of water saving features here. We don't get a lot of rain
and a lot of moisture, sowater is definitely a very precious resource that
(18:30):
we try to conserve, and betweenlow flow fixtures and our homes and public
buildings, those things help to savewater also. But nothing's perfect by any
means, and we'll be the firstto tell you that we're kind of a
living laboratory and a lot of waysthat different companies came in and either donated
or discounted different products for us totry. And nothing's perfect, and being
(18:55):
in rural part of the country,sometimes finding people to work on these different
things like wind turbans proves to bea challenge just because we are so rule
here. So we've run into someof those maintenance kind of issues now that
we're ten eleven years out and someof the buildings, some of the different
systems have needed some maintenance. Sothat actually reminds me, you know,
it's been ten years and prior toall this, as you mentioned previously,
(19:18):
you were just kind of a smallMiddle America town, and now you've kind
of been put on the map.I have to wonder what that's like for
you in your town all of asudden being in the spotlight. I will
say I listened to the Marfa episodethat you did, and I drew a
lot of parallels between us and them. I thought it was very interesting that
just the media and what that doesand the perception I guess of your community
(19:45):
from the outside versus what it iswhen you've actually come and visit. You
know, the media is here withinminutes after the tornado, and it definitely
took our small town and thrust itinto a national and international spotlight. Really,
we had light trucks here for weeksthat broadcast live from Greensburg all over
(20:06):
the country from CNN, the FoxNews, NBC, ABC, all the
different affiliates, so immediately, ashappens in disasters, there were cameras here
and that was also disorienting, justnot being used to that spotlight on our
community. But also I think wesought as an opportunity to show the world
(20:26):
who we are and that we weregoing to come back. Over the next
few months, as Greensburg started torebuild, Bob made the decision to run
for mayor on the Republican ticket exactlya year after that tornado touchdown and what
(20:47):
could only be described as a landslide. Bob was elected and as mayor,
rebuilding became so much more than justgoing green. It became about community and
conservation. It was more than thedecision to go green, is how do
we be sustainable? How do webuild a community to less lifetimes like our
(21:08):
ancestors built community for us, andgreen was part of that. When people
were planning there and designing their newhomes, we needed to make sure that
they had all the information available tothem of data, the art, building
products, doors, insulation, buildingmaterials that they could utilize and be within
(21:32):
their budget that they had, butbe as green as they could be of
as energy fishing, and so wedid more on the educational side than mandating
anything from the city. What wasthe general reception within Greensburg like to making
these changes, Well, everyone intown to built a homer business back,
(21:52):
built back greener than by far thanwas there before, and even the ones
that weren't totally on board were stillbeing sustainable and building green because through education
and through an agreement with the Kansashome Builders Association, and they would come
out and we would work with themand they would work with us a collaboration,
(22:17):
and we didn't even have contractors saidwell, I ain't building that green
stuff because my dad didn't build itthat way and my granddad didn't build it
that way, when in fact,because of higher energy costs at the time
of the tornado, people were focusingon insulation, good quality doors and windows,
utilizing the natural daylighting that you couldin your home. All those basic
(22:41):
principal practices of our pioneering ancestors usedwhen they settled this area. So even
if there was people that thought theyweren't part of the movement, they actually
were. You make a business case, sports, and the business case is
I'm going to lower my energy costsand at the same time maintain property valuation
(23:06):
of good strong structures. So inthat whole process, it's about a business
case, and that's what people made. They built as green as they could
with the green they had available.So going back to that tent, which
I think for all intents and purposeskind of became your community center. The
Tornado and the rebuild put you ina unique position of giving your community such
(23:30):
a profound and active voice in therebuilding of their town. I have to
wonder how that impacted relationships within thetown and just with Greensburg, the ability
could meet altogether as a community.Remember there was no buildings left in town,
schools, churches, anything, Sowe'd have community church service together on
(23:53):
Sunday, and after the church servicethere was some organization depending upon the week
that would have a meal for everybody, and then we would have some meetings
and we'd meet other days in theweek. But more than anything, I
think the key was it started ourhealing process as a community. That we
(24:17):
were able to gather together and finda way to reason together and find a
way to come to common ground ofhow to move forward. And it was
based on our character, our valuesare more not a plan brought to us
from the outside that says this iswhat you have to do. It was
(24:38):
something that we decided to do.And when you do that as a community,
you have better buy in and youget a whole lot better results.
And if someone just comes and says, hey, here's a plan, I
think it'll work for you that's whatyou need to do. That's interesting and
I think it's a question a lotof people are asking, is how do
we spread good ideas without mandating goodideas? Well. I think that more
(25:03):
than anything, there has to beclarity. It can't be elected officials that
decide, oh, we're going todo something. It has to be community
driven, and it has to bebased on the character of that community and
not some ideology. And it hasto transcend political parties. It has to
(25:25):
be about the community, and that'swhen you find that good, solid decisions
are made. We're just called tobe environmental stewards, but at the same
time we're called to be financial stewards. Also. I can build the greenest
building in the world that's totally offgrid, but if I can't afford to
live in it, we don't havea sustainable community because we don't have people.
(25:49):
So it's about the triple bottom line. You have to have business,
you have to have environmental stewardship,and it's about the people. So when
you look at all that together,the triple bottom line, then that's what
makes it work. You can't focuson any one leg as a three legged
step, or it falls over whatI think is so lovely and unique about
(26:12):
this, And I don't really wantto talk about politics, but I do
want to talk about our relationships betweenideas and politics. And you know,
I think it's fair to say mostof our country would consider green and eco
architecture and eco movements as being avery democratic foundation. And I think you
(26:33):
go to rural Kansas, which islargely Republican, and you take this idea
and make it work in a meaningfulway for that community, and it's just
an excellent bipartisan marriage of ideas.I couldn't agree with you more. And
the problem that we've had is we'vetried to make it politics and it ends
up as a political football is kickfrom one end of the field to the
(26:56):
other, but nothing's ever done aboutthe environment. We choose upsides, we
call one side deniers and we callthe other side extremists. We don't find
common ground for an honest, opendialogue to come together for real solutions to
real problems. And I think thatthat's what we have to do. Is
(27:19):
everybody going to be happy. Noteverybody in Greensburg was happy the direction we
took, but by coming to aconsensus and talking about it, and listening
to all voices and understanding that themost important thing in any conversation is you
have to listen. Conversation isn't justtalking, and we have too much of
(27:42):
that at the federal and state levelright now. Is way too much talking
and not enough listening. And Iunderstand you've become a bit of a steward
for the government in green cities andgoing green, and I imagine bringing some
of the conversations we've had two stateand federal level. Well, yes,
(28:02):
we've been able to as a wholecommunity and not just me, but many
people have been able to speak togroups all over and just spread that this
is just about making a difference wherewe're planted. We're people of conservation values,
not conservative or liberal on saying,conservation values taught by our parents and
(28:25):
grandparents. If you take care ofthe land, it will take care of
you. And another guiding principle thatwe were always taught in rural America was
leave it better than you found it. And when you take those basic principles,
that basic foundation, those roots,then it all clicks together that yes,
what we're called to be environmental stewardsand not get caught up in all
(28:52):
the other extraneous conversation that goes onthat really doesn't end up being productive at
all. Rebuilding of Greensburg and thechanges that came with it started bringing new
faces to town. Two thousand andeight, when the recession hit. I'd
had a nice office job, butI got laid off from there. At
the same time, my vehicle wasin the shop. Without a job,
(29:14):
I couldn't afford to get it out, and I couldn't afford rent. So
I decided to just look for awhole new lifestyle, and I went online
looking for overseas volunteer opportunities. Quicklyrealized most of those required you to pay
your own way to go, whichwasn't going to work in my situation.
Somehow, I came across many NightHousing who was building low income housing in
Greensburg, and I talked to them. They were looking for volunteers, and
(29:37):
basically I said, if you canfeed me and give me a place to
stay, I'll come out and volunteerfor a year and help build houses.
So I came out December of twothousand and eight, and I stayed I
think till May of two and ten, and that time we built about twenty
six different houses. My name isMike macbeth. I'm originally from Phoenix,
Arizona, and I lived in Greensburg. It was definitely a culture shock for
(30:00):
me coming from Phoenix. I cameinto town it was about one in the
morning and just driving around and seeingthe destruction. It had been about a
year since the tornado hit, butthere was still a lot of signs of
the tornado, metal wrapped around trees, and a lot of temporary housing set
up all over the place. Thehospital was a tent. It was definitely
(30:22):
a surreal thing to walk into.But what I quickly found was the community
part of it was just amazing.Everybody was helping everybody, and that's what
really made me fall in love withGreensburg. What surprised you the most.
There were a lot of surprises.Yeah, you hear about small town America,
especially here in Kansas in the BibleBelt, you have a certain assumption
about the way things are. Butthe community was really the best part,
(30:45):
and it just blew my mind becauseyou know, growing up in Phoenix,
with so many people being around you, you're always paranoid. All your doors
are locked. Coming out here,when I started working with Manni housing.
They gave me a pickup truck aroundtown, and the first couple of days
I would lock the truck up andtake the keys with me, and they
were like, no, no,just leave the keys in the truck because
(31:07):
somebody else might need it. SoI started doing that. That was very
hard to do it first, andone day I woke up and the truck
was gone. I started freaking outbecause this truck I'm responsible for is gone,
trying to figure out what to doabout that, and a few minutes
later, the guy pulls up said, hey, I need to move some
lumber, so I've already truck.And that was just kind of the feeling
all over town. I actually witnessedone guy. He came into the store
(31:30):
we have here in town and heran out of gas about a half mile
outside of town, and another guyjust threw him the keys to his truck
and said bringing back when you're donewith it. And later I asked him
if he knew that guy, andhe had no clue who he was.
He just wanted to help him out. And those kinds of stories were all
over the place, and just seeingthat time and time again, really it
(31:51):
really changed me. I was justI wanted to be a part of it.
Our community is continuing to grow,new homes springing up every little bit,
and so our population is growing.But the exciting thing about that is
the largest grades in our school systemby numbers are kindergarten through third grade.
(32:17):
So that tells us that we havea lot of more younger people in the
community than we've had in the past, which really makes us sustainable for the
long term when you figure population becauseof that young population. And what was
Greensburg like before the tornado hit Greensburgwas an aging community. Rural America has
(32:37):
done a very poor job of keepingthe youth in the community, and this
has been going on for decades.Our biggest export has been our youth,
sent them off to great institutions oflearning and they got jobs elsewhere. But
that is totally changed now. We'reseeing more people being able to either work
(33:00):
from home or startup startup businesses,and so that's exciting. But that's the
change that we have seen is froman older, aging community to a lot
younger community. Now. When wewere done building, there run a lot
of job opportunities. So I left, went back to Phoenix, ended up
out in La when I got tothe point where I was working remotely,
(33:22):
I decided to move back to Greensburg. And you're in the digital tech industry,
I imagine that would take a lotfor you to move from LA,
where there's tons of jobs and tonsof opportunities, to a tiny town in
Kansas. Yeah, it's actually kindof funny. In LA. You know,
you're a small fish and a reallybig pond. And I actually struggled
(33:43):
for a long time to find workout there that was not a four hour
commute each day or not with aton of competition. So moving to Greensburg,
where there was a big void oftechnical expertise, actually set me up
to be able to become like thetech guy around town. How has this
experience dance from your need to finda place that would work for you to
(34:05):
helping rebuild the community to your eventualreturn. How has that changed you?
It's changed me quite a bit.Back before I ever did any volunteer work,
I was completely happy just being thequiet guy on the outside, go
to work, go home and playvideo games and be done. And now
the initial volunteer experience really opened upmy eyes to how much of an impact
(34:30):
a single person can make in asituation like this. After leaving, I
got involved in a lot of othervolunteer activities. I would work with the
Salvation Army out in Phoenix at theirhydration stations, handing out wander to homeless
people, food drives during Thanksgiving andChristmas, all that kind of stuff.
And the more I got involved,I realized the happier I was, the
(34:50):
more I can give back to otherpeople. It made a big difference.
So now I'm a totally opposite personas I was from before I came out
here. I'm involved in everything asmany groups as I can be, and
my days are filled from sunrise atsunset. So yeah, it's been a
big, big change to me personally. So I think it could be mutually
(35:12):
agreed upon that Greensburg is a stronger, better community now than it was eleven
years ago. But I wonder inthat change, is there a sense of
loss. There's always a sense ofloss. We've had We had people that
wanted to build back Greensburg just theway it was because that is what they
(35:34):
knew, that was stability in theirlives. When you lose everything from either
a flood or tornado or earthquake orwhatever, and the only thing you have
left is to close and the shueyou have on. It doesn't matter how
much money you have in the bankor how many vehicles you had, because
they're gone. But what you dohave is each other. So what people
(35:54):
wanted is you need some sense ofstability. And some of that stability was
Hey, let's just build it backto way it was. I just wanted
the way it was. But inour conversations we say, no, we
can do better than just the wayit was. There's some things that we
would want to change. Now,let's have that honest, open dialogue.
(36:17):
What would we make different now thatwe have the opportunity? What could we
change that will be better for futuregenerations? And it's all about how do
we make it better for future generations? How has this experienced changed you?
(36:37):
Well, tremendously because it's made meand I think a lot of people really
not only dealing with disaster, butunderstanding that stuff is just stuff. We
still have our life, but amore inner thought process of taking care of
what we've been blessed with, ofthe resources that we have available, of
(37:00):
living within the means that we haveavailable, and knowing that it is about
community if we're going to survive,it has to be driven by the real
community thought process. And I've spokenall over and I've heard them tell me
(37:21):
in major metropolitan areas well, we'renot a small community. And I said,
yeah, you are. You arejust a bunch of small communities in
a geographical city limit. And howdo you deal with that? And the
key is you have to decide whatis the character of your little community there,
(37:42):
and are you willing to be informed, involved and engaged in the processes
of that community, And are youdoing anything for the youth and the younger
people in the community to have thembeing actively involved in those processes, Because
that's the future of your community is. And that's the beauty of Greensburg right
(38:04):
now is we have a tremendous amountof population that is under forty and they're
really involved in the community. Andso now it's time for us older citizens
to turn some of this over tothem. Still be able to be there
and coach and minium, but say, hey, this is your community for
your kids and your grandkids now.And I think too many times we think
(38:29):
we have to be in charge tillthe day the funeral director comes and gets
us and If that's the case,then you have a dying community because you've
done nothing to emulate to the youthof the community what community values are about,
what public services about, what civilityis about. Because those are our
(38:54):
future elected leaders, and that's whywe need to be mentoring them and encouraging
them. And here in Greensburg,they're stepping up to the plate. So
that's very rewarding. That's fantastic.You know, on a personal level,
I am one of those city liberals, and it's really wonderful for me to
(39:19):
see movements and ideas not be constrainedwithin one political party. I think in
a time where a lot of usfeel a little hopeless, it gives us
all a little bit of hope thatthere is a middle ground and that that
middle ground can be a thriving place. Well. And Josh, that middle
ground is simply the ground that hasto be had through conversation and willing to
(39:43):
admit that my ideology isn't perfect andthat maybe there are some other ideas out
there that need to be looked atand implemented. That's best for everyone.
And I know that that can seempretty pie sky talk at times. But
if we don't start doing that.Our youth is still going to continue to
(40:06):
see the polarization that we have now, and what hope is there for them
to make a difference if they justkeep seeing polarization of ideologies. One thing
we have to remember is we stillhave to treat each other with dignity and
respect. We can agree to disagree, but we can still have a relationship
(40:28):
and still be able to have thatdialogue. Greensburg now has the most LEAD
certified buildings per capita in the world. The town runs almost entirely on solar
panels and wind turbines, so Greensburgis quite literally using the wind that destroyed
(40:50):
it to now rebuild and sustain it. To check out Mayor Dixon's ted talk
on rebuilding Greensburg with sustainable energy,head to the Greensburg, Kansas Show Notes
at www dot our Americana podcast dotcom. And when you're done with that,
(41:12):
check out this other indie podcast thatI love, Hey It's Me How
You Are would Pretend Radio? Icontinue to explore the concept of people pretending
to be someone else, Like Carl, who comes from a long line of
(41:34):
con artists. My father told meat a young age he says Carl.
The two easiest things to sell anybodyanything that will prove their looks and anything
that will make them money. Andthat's what you want to sell. But
guess who else I have on theshow, the FBI agent who busted him.
Oh yeah. I also started doinga little digging and found this whole
(41:55):
community of parents who are making theirkids drink bleach to cure them from their
autism. She said that parasites arecausing autism and the only way to get
rid of autisms to kill the parasiteswith this solution. So parents are giving
it to their children and they're havingsouls breakout on their children's arms. They
are having a bow lining come outof their children. Awsome. I talked
(42:21):
to a millionaire whose life was destroyedby a con man but then ended up
becoming a carn artist herself. Plus, I tell a story I don't like
to talk about often. It's mypersonal encounter with a psychopath. Subscribe to
Pretend Radio wherever you get your podcasts.
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