We are not going to easily leave our roots and history, we have businesses and land here as well as memories, we are going to start over and build upon what we have left and not give up and leave because things have gotten tough. Only a very few left permanently, and those were usually those too elderly to start all over in life or those who had no job left to go to. Those of us remaining are struggling with all there is to do personally as well as business-related. The town was not completely destroyed, there are still homes surviving here. It won’t be easy but it will be worth it if we can show the world how to start being “greener” in some small way. We hope people will learn from what we do, can enlarge the scale and keep it going. It will by no means be perfect, nor will it be a total change, but it is a start. Each step we take will be copied somewhere else. This is what the Discovery Chanel is trying to document, the learning process, the experimentation, the efforts to improve that we go through on a daily basis. There is no way to recover quickly, it will take years of small steps, patient and steady work. Television often makes it look like things are resolved in minutes, when reality is that it takes so very long to put the puzzle back together.

We all thank Leonardo DiCaprio for his interest in us and his efforts to help document our progress. Don’t forget that there are many others that have not had their names in the headlines that are just as interested, powerful and forward-thinking concerning the future of a tiny village in Kansas and what it could mean to the entire nation. They have contributed just as much or more than Leo. He is just one of many interested in seeing what a new infrastructure can become with help, guidance and technology. No, it won’t be without a lot of cost and friction. But what will it mean to the coming generations of Americans? We hope to become a small step toward a better future, and people Like Leo are taking the initiative. What have YOU done to make that so? Have YOU stepped up and shown the world what a difference YOU can make?

Cost: As technology improves, demand grows, and production becomes large scale, the price of green building will go down. Discouraging it because of price is counterproductive. If we took that mindset on everything, we wouldn’t have cars, tv’s, computers, or much of anything else.

Greensburg: The word alley is misleading. If you look on a map that outlines tornado alley, you can easily see why relocation makes little sense. You are talking tens of millions of people. Also, this is the ideal type of place to do a project such as Eco Town. If you start from scratch in an undeveloped area, you are disrupting nature, which contradicts the mission. If you start in a developed and populous area, you will not be able to impact the entire system. Greebsburg is the best of all worlds. It is small enough to make undertaking the entire town feasible, and it is large enough to create a meaningful prototype (I apologize for calling a town a prototype. I’m not trying to be insensitive, but I don’t have a better word).

DiCaprio: Come on guys, let’s give him a break. He believes in something, and he is pursuing it. If I had millions to promote a cause and the fame to bring awareness to it, I would. And I hope you would too. If someone donates $1000 dollars to a cause, we applaud him/her. If someone donates $1million, we ridicule him/her. I don’t get it.

I may be wrong. The Eco Town project may be wrong. But the fact that they may be right, and the impact that them being right would have on generations to come, should encourage us all to be positive about this, and think of ways to make it work.

Kristi’s quote:
I just returned from Greensburg earlier this evening. I was surprised to see there is still a LOT of cleanup to be done before anyone can even think about moving back there. Living in “tornado alley” my entire life (and still have never seen a tornado), I’ve seen many small Kansas towns devastated – Udall and Topeka in the 50s and 60s and, more recently, Hesston and Andover – by large tornadoes. But I’ve never seen the cleanup effort going as slowly as it is in Greensburg. Possibly because it’s not close to a large city (Hesston and Andover are both fairly close to Wichita) and there isn’t the volunteer efffort, being that far removed from a larger population.
End Quote.
Survivors of the tornado had me and my mother and children pulled out of the rubble and myself on an ambulance to Pratt within 15 minutes of the hit. Surrounding towns already had their emergency crews there, doctors and nurses stunned and dazed worked on the injured, and the Search and Rescue and cleanup crews were there within HOURS- and Kristi, if you had visited the town IMMEDIATELY following the tornado, you would have understood why the cleanup efforts are still ongoing. Nearly nothing existed in that town that had been there throughout it’s entire history, but the grain elevator and a few homes and structures. I watched crews move literally TONS and TONS of debris, as well as hundreds of cars, including my own, within the first few weeks. And the town I knew was BARON by June. There was NO LACK of volunteers, and you can check out the landfills in Kiowa county if it still doesn’t make sense. You really had to see to understand, that new gas lines, plumbing, electric lines, cables, etc… all had to be rebuilt. A new water tower also. You could not even begin construction until the debris was cleared out. People wonder why the fuss over a little dinky town when so many are homeless and what not in New Orleans. If you live in a town of 1500, how long do you think it would take your residents to clean up miles and miles of your town? We understand the losses many are suffering. My mother lives in a FEMA trailor now. Insurance paid for her house, but sure didn’t buy her a new one, and she is too old to start all over on mortgage on a newly built home. Rest assured, there are people out there who are going to make sure Marti Gras goes on and on, and people who will still build their homes next to the ocean regardless of the hurricanes. You have no idea how much the residents of Greensburg-a small farming community, who treasure their town and it’s history- appreciate every bit of help no matter how small. The folks who stayed, stay because they care about their neighbors, and have developed great relationships with them, and they deffinately know they can count on them after this experience. And to all of the MANY MANY volunteers who have helped with cleanup, and to those who are helping to prevent future losses such as this, A WORLD OF THANKS.

Details
Saturday Setember 29th 2007 2pm until 11pm. This is an all ages fund rasing concert for the Greensburg Tornado Survivors. Raffle prizes, Food, Drinks, Music, and More. $10.00 minimum donation.

Start Date Saturday, September 29, 2007
Start Time 2:00 PM
End Time 11:00 PM

Additional Information Xit-Rite Records
Jason Chase/Vairon Perez

Phone 310-850-8234
Email vairon_1@msn.com
Web Address http://www.greensburgtornadobenefit.com

Thanks,
Jessica