29 A2+ the city experiment

CHAPTER 1 What a Tornado Can Do ON MAY 4, 2007, THE PEOPLE OF GREENSBURG, KANSAS, LEARNED THAT A TORNADO WAS GOING TO HIT THEIR TOWN. That evening, the first thing that the people of Greensburg saw was a thunderstorm coming closer. Then they began to hear the loud noise a tornado makes. The noise became louder, and the wind was very strong. People were afraid. Some of them lay down on the floor of their houses. Others ran quickly to their tornado shelters, special rooms below their houses. At 9:45 p.m. the tornado hit the town. It was the strongest kind of tornado. It had winds of 330 kilometers per hour. It was 2.7 kilometers wide, wider than the town of Greensburg.

The town was hit very hard, and 95 percent of the buildings were destroyed. Houses, stores, and offices were broken up into small pieces called rubble. Some buildings and cars were carried away by the wind. The tornado caused many other problems. Electricity and telephone wires were broken. People could not talk to the rest of the world outside the town. The hospital was partly destroyed, and two schools were completely destroyed. What about the people? Of the 1,400 people who lived in Greensburg, 11 were killed by the tornado. Many people were hurt by falling rubble. Other people were caught inside destroyed houses and stores. They could not get out until others came to dig them out.

No one could live in the town after that. Almost all of the houses and businesses were destroyed. For a week, everyone in Greensburg went to live somewhere else. The town was empty. Then some people began to return to Greensburg to rebuild their town. But they had nothing. They needed food, clean water, and clothes. A few days after the tornado, the President of the United States, George W. Bush, came to visit to try to help cheer up the people of Greensburg. People from other areas of the United States and from other countries began to send food and other things that the town needed. These volunteers, people from many different places, came to Greensburg to work and to help rebuild the town.

The tornado destroyed Greensburg and changed the lives of everyone who lived there. Some people never returned to their town because they were afraid to come back. These people thought that another tornado might come and destroy the town again. After all, Kansas is a place where there are tornadoes almost every year. But most of the people of Greensburg did return to rebuild their town. When these people arrived home, they did not have a place to live. Their homes were completely destroyed. Where could they live? This is the story of how the people of Greensburg rebuilt their town.

CHAPTER 2 Thinking in New Ways AFTER THE TORNADO, MANY PEOPLE IN GREENSBURG DECIDED TO REBUILD THEIR TOWN IN A DIFFERENT WAY. A week after the destruction of Greensburg, many people returned to the area. They had meetings to talk about their city. Some people had an exciting idea. They wanted to rebuild Greensburg to make it better than it was before the tornado. They wanted to rebuild the town to make it "green." They wanted to save energy and protect the environment. Most of the people of Greensburg agreed to rebuild their town "green." A law was made that many buildings had to be "green." But "green building" is not cheap or easy, so the people of Greensburg needed a lot of money and help.

Many people everywhere heard about the destruction of Greensburg. Television, radio, the Internet, newspapers, and magazines told the story in words, pictures, and videos. A group of people called GreensburgGreenTown set up a Web site to show what was happening in their town. People from all round the world now knew that Greensburg needed help to rebuild. The Web site was a way for the people of Greensburg to tell the world about their plan; the plan to make their new town an example of the best "green" architecture and ecological thinking. People sent money and other things to help. Greensburg was going to become a very new and different place to live!