The Tornado That Erased 95 Percent of a Town - Greensburg 2007

May fourth, two thousand seven. The first EF5 tornado ever rated on the Enhanced Fujita scale hit Greensburg, Kansas at nine forty five in the evening, one point seven miles wide, on the ground for an hour and two minutes. Ninety five percent of the town was damaged or destroyed, nine hundred and sixty one homes and businesses were destroyed, and twelve people died. The warnings had gone out almost forty minutes early, the sirens ran twenty minutes before the tornado arrived, and the town was still erased, because the tornado was nearly the size of Greensburg itself. This is the story of the night the warning system worked. Sources: National Weather Service Dodge City damage survey, May 2007. Marshall and Wurman, Greensburg damage survey findings. Ablah et al. 2013, University of Kansas Health System, critical mortality study. Wikipedia, 2007 Greensburg tornado. Wikipedia, Greensburg, Kansas. Wikipedia, Udall, Kansas, 1955 tornado. NBC News and Associated Press, May 2007. Lawrence Journal-World, September 2007. The Washington Post, 2020. 0:00 The Night Greensburg Was Hit 2:26 What Greensburg Was Before 4:01 Tornado Alley and Kansas History 5:27 Radar Warnings and the Storm 7:23 Surviving the EF5 Impact 9:47 The Aftermath and Total Destruction 13:20 Rebuilding America's Green Town