Kan. Town Vows to Rebuild After Tornado

Vern Catron, left, and his cousin, T.J. Fiedler, 7, both of Rossville, Kan., load sandbags onto a trailer as they volunteer at Rossville High School, where sand and bags were handed out, Monday, May 7, 2007. After filling his trailer, Catron drove around looking for people who needed assistance with the flooding and delivered the sandbags. (AP Photo/Topeka Capital-Journal, Mike Burley) (Mike Burley - AP)

"You could probably make a place that both the desire and the resources are there and the town serves an economic function for the region," Weber said. "An external trauma often gives energy to where you wouldn't have seen it before."

Danny McLarty, the location manager for the Southern Plains Co-op, and his employees were salvaging what they could, cleaning the mess and counting their losses. Although the grain elevator was still standing, but only half of the outer shell of its business office remained.

Posted signs said, "Construction under progress," and McLarty said he was keeping all 14 employees on the payroll.

"This is a farm community. The elevator has to be here. Farmers have to have a place to buy their supplies," McLarty said. "We will be here for them _ that is what a farming community is all about."

Insurance payments also will help, and the Kansas Insurance Department reported that adjusters were already writing checks.

Greensburg is likely to see a short-term burst of economic activity from the reconstruction of homes and businesses, said Michael Babcock, an economics professor at Kansas State University.

"The town out there was pretty much depending on agriculture and oil and gas and so forth. I don't think the tornado changed any of that," Babcock said. "I can't think of an example of a town where everybody just walked away and never came back."

The storm that hit Greensburg Friday has also been blamed in the deaths of a Macksville police officer in Stafford County and an unidentified man in Pratt County. An Ottawa County woman died Sunday after a new round of storms spawned a tornado that struck a camper.

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Associated Press writers Steve Brisendine and Roxana Hegeman also contributed.