Greensburg
By Chris Tilley
What do you do when your town is wiped out by a tornado? Well you rebuild of course. The town of Greensburg Kansas is doing exactly that after the EF5 tornado of May 4th, 2007. What’s more they as a community are striving to rebuild green. This is a grassroots movement with lots of cooperation with government, businesses and the residents. Its been two years and they are having a well deserved celebration.
First of all they are rebuilding environmentally friendly buildings. A lot of them are or going to be LEED certified. As an example their new school is going to be LEED Platinum certified with things like:(source)
- Rain water capture
- Geothermal heating and cooling
- Use of natural day lighting and ventilation
- Use of recycled and regional materials
- Native plants landscaping
Greensburg Courthouse (source)
Some other building that are going to have some level of LEED certification. Two have complete Leed Platinum and 6 more are aiming for it. One the courthouse is going for LEED gold. The courthouse was damaged in the tornado but not destroyed. The original building was built in 1914 so one of the improvements is insulation. They are also adding rainwater collection, geothermal, efficient lighting and more.(source)
The town is also going to have carbon free electricity. They along with partners are building a 12.5 MW wind farm. Enough to power the whole town. This meets the towns goal of 100% renewable electricity.
All 303 streetlights were replaced with LED lights. Those lights use 40% less electricity, have a longer lifespan with less maintenance. This will save them 70% on their lighting costs. It also makes them the only town in the USA with 100% LED street lighting.(source)
They also have an education system to inform the residents of ways to being green. That is half the battle sometimes is to show people that change can be a good thing. That being environmentally friend doesn’t have to be hard.
Congratulation Greensburg and keep up the great work. I am sure that tourists will be stopping by to see the greenest town around. You are showing everyone that it can be done.
This is a great article Chris! Glad you found out about this town. I love how grassroots people took a hold of this opportunity and re-created their every day reality. What an example we all can follow when looking to improve/ redo/ replace any aspect of our life.
See you in 6 days….!!!
Steph
Comment by stephanie tait — Sunday, May 3, 2009 @ 10:16 pm
Do you thing the town was called Greensburg before the Tornado or renamed after the big storm? Whenever it was named, it was named appropriately for what is happening in the town now! Cheers, Shaunah
Comment by Shaunah — Monday, May 4, 2009 @ 11:23 pm
Greensburg was established in 1886. Greensburg was named for stagecoach driver D. R. “Cannonball” Green.(source,http://www.greensburgks.org/visitor/kiowa-county-greensburg-history)
For more on more on the Greensburg check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greensburg,_Kansas
Comment by Chris Tilley — Tuesday, May 5, 2009 @ 8:51 am