Psychology Today | 28.05.2026 00:25
On May 4, 2007, at 9:54 p.m., an EF5 tornado over 1.7 miles wide with winds over 205 miles per hour hit Greensburg, Kansas. The small rural town with a population of about 1,300 was leveled. The tornado took about a dozen lives and destroyed 95 percent of the town, including homes, businesses, and government buildings. The sirens went off approximately 15 minutes before the tornado hit, but there was no mechanism to prevent the disaster. Put yourself in the shoes of the residents of Greensburg: What do you do when your plans and your way of life and everything you know is destroyed overnight? What do you do as an individual, a business, a government, or a community?
