On a quick visit up home a couple of weeks ago, we went through Greensburg, and spent a little time there before going to my hometown. Here are some pictures showing how it is currently. Greensburg seems to be thriving, which is great to see, considering about 95 per cent of the town was destroyed by the storm.
On the internet and on Facebook, there are great sites and pages showing their progress, and what they're doing in the rebuilding of the community. Lately, there have been neat pictures and videos of their new swimming pool, so when we first got to town on our "whirlwind" visit (including mostly whirlwind photos from a moving car, ha ha), we went to the old pool site, thinking they rebuilt it there, like they did in my hometown. Well .... we found this:
... there was the old pool, bath house and kiddie pool sitting in silent repose, no activity, and a nice "lawn" filling the old pool! NO NEW POOL HERE. [We later found out it was built on the site where the hospital used to be, which was in a section of town we didn't go to that day! Will have to see it another time.]
So we continued on. The original Dillon's grocery store got pretty beat up, so they moved it closer to the middle of town, building on to the Kwik Shop, so that it's all one open building, with an open doorway between the two businesses, and the checkout counters there in the middle. We went in and got a few things, which thrilled me to be able to take back to Oklahoma.
Greensburg also has a new theater, keeping the name of the original one.
The new "Care-n-Share" thrift store, which was up close to the highway, now farther south on Main.
The Senior Center ... looks like a beautiful building to serve the community.
There was a lot of beautiful "landscaping," various trees, greenery, flowers, grasses. I found out later in one of their videos that they planted native plants that were hardy to withstand dry conditions. I thought it was all beautiful!
There are various styles of houses that have been built during this time. I love these little "cottage"-looking houses!
The Christian Church has a new building.
They also have a hospital, hotel, arts center and the "Big Well" museum and a new water tower, among other things.
Three days after the tornado, we happened to have the chance to go "near" Greensburg, as we were in the area. We could only get within 2-3 miles, due to closed roads. I remember seeing the sense of destruction and the scraggly, destroyed trees even from that distance. These last two photos show Greensburg from the south currently, the direction the storm came from as it bore down on the town. Though you can still see "scraggly" (but green) trees and vacant lots here and there in town, now it's so good to see new buildings, businesses, school, and PEOPLE continuing on in a wonderful spirit. It's the people who make a community, and that's still evident in Greensburg. I'm sure it must've been terribly hard to pick up the pieces from such destruction, but they have done great so far in these last eight years, and I'm sure there will be more. Again, best wishes to Greensburg!
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