(Photo: AP/The Wichita Eagle, G. Marc Benavidez)The Rev. Gene McIntosh touches the cross that once stood at the First United Methodist Church in Greensburg, Kan., Sunday, May 6, 2007, after a tornado hit the area on Friday. Searchers went back to work Sunday looking for anyone who might have been trapped since a tornado wiped most of this south-central Kansas town off the map.
(Photo: AP/The Wichita Eagle, G. Marc Benavidez)Members of the Kansas Department of Transportation begin cleaning up debris on a part of U.S. Highway 54 in Greensburg, Kan. on Sunday May 6, 2007. The clean up effort began due to a tornado that struck on Friday May 4, 2007 destroying homes and forcing hundreds to evacuate.
(Photo: AP/Orlin Wagner)Destroyed homes and cars are shown in Greensburg, Kan., Saturday, May 5, 2007. Most of this southwest Kansas town was destroyed by a tornado, part of a violent storm system blamed for at least nine deaths, officials said Saturday amid warnings of more severe weather. The tornado that struck Greensburg late Friday damaged about 95 percent of the town about 110 miles west of Wichita and 50 miles north of the Oklahoma state line, City Administrator Steve Hewitt said Saturday.
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Christian groups are on ground and responding to last week’s devastating Kansas twister that demolished nearly the entire farming town of Greensburg, Kan.
Two Salvation Army canteens – emergency disaster mobile feeding units – were deployed immediately following the disaster, the organization reported Monday. The canteens are capable of feeding up to 2,000 people a day and were deployed along with the group’s emergency disaster services teams.
“Basically we’re out there doing an assessment of the needs and will provide basic services making sure people have shelter, food, medicines and anything else they might need,” said Dee Smith, emergency disaster services director for The Salvation Army in Kansas and Western Missouri, in a statement.
“We will be in place to assist the community for as long as we are needed,” Smith added.
In addition to food and other basic physical needs, Salvation Army officers are also on ground providing emotional and spiritual care to residents.
A killer mile-wide tornado with 205-mph winds killed nine people in and around Greensburg late Friday, according to CNN. More than 50 people were injured according to authorities and the Red Cross reports that about 90 percent of Greensburg was destroyed or heavily damaged.
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The tornado struck in an area in central United States known as tornado alley, which is prone to destructive funnel clouds that kill an average of 70 Americans each year, according to Reuters.
Meanwhile, the Christian Reformed World Relief Committee reported that its disaster response director, Bill Adams, will participate in the Kansas State Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster (VOAD) gathering on Tuesday. He will help plan emergency response efforts for the survivors.
“This town is completely flattened,” Adams said, in a report, “so it’s unlikely we’ll be sending our Rapid Response Teams, which often can provide survivors with clean up and short-term repair assistance.
“Sadly, in Greensburg, there doesn’t appear to be much left to repair,” he noted.
The coordination meetings this week will assess the ongoing emergency response and the feasibility of long-term reconstruction and rebuilding in Greensburg.
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