Greensburg: what went wrong
The Greensburg rebuild ran on donated materials and cameras, and it showed me what that cannot replace.
Greensburg was a town about a mile wide, and the tornado erased it. FEMA trailers meant for roughly six months became home for a year and a half for some residents. Cameras were everywhere, so people started feeling like celebrities and expecting everything for free, including those who had insurance money for their bills.
Our crews rebuilt 13 homes along with commercial buildings. Much of the town was never finished, and we had other projects underway that we walked away from. After about a year and a half we pulled out, and the GCs wound up finishing them.
Free materials do not finish a project that nobody will pay to complete. The off-gassing FEMA trailer was also the least green thing in the entire program.
A few common spaces did get completed, but at the end it turned into something of a disaster. Attention changes how people behave. Even with donated materials and cameras on site, a rebuild needs clients who pay their bills.
Story details
| Project | Greensburg, Kansas |
|---|---|
| Type | Mistake and repair |
| Year | 2007 to 2008 |
| Firm telling | on the Common Ground wiki |