Bush visits Greensburg, Kan., a town torn and then reborn after 2007 tornado

Today, the hospital is gone. So are the red brick high school, the single-screen movie theater, the soda shop, City Hall, the county courthouse. Like 95% of this little town on the prairies of southwest Kansas, they were destroyed by a tornado that struck a year ago Sunday, killing 11.

Hewitt could have taken his insurance check and moved away, as about half the town's residents did. He didn't.

On the first anniversary of the storm, President Bush returned to Greensburg to celebrate its "yearlong journey from tragedy to triumph" as exemplified by the stubborn determination of a town full of Alvin Hewitts: hundreds of people who refused to simply salvage what they could and then drive away from the rubble, all 45,000 truckloads of it. By the estimate of state Democratic House Leader Dennis McKinney, at least half of the 1,400 residents remained. They are rebuilding the town, gamely turning Greensburg green -- figuratively and literally.

The town, founded in 1886 and named for a 19th-century stagecoach driver, D.R. "Cannonball" Green, is rising again, built this time with a raft of energy-saving measures incorporated in the designs. Wind turbines and solar panels are contributing power. Native grasses are being planted to lessen the need for water.

A quick ride through Greensburg suggests the distance it still has to travel. Entire city blocks are barren but for an occasional elm -- most branches stripped away, but green shoots appearing with the spring. The schools are a collection of double-wide trailers used as classrooms.

Where the theater stood, there's a jumble of bricks and timber. But a few blocks beyond, just south of the town's lone traffic light, single-story townhomes are taking shape.

'Laid low,' it 'stood tall'

The president, who toured the destruction soon after the tornado struck, returned Sunday to speak at the graduation of Greensburg High School's 18 seniors -- advanced a week to accommodate his schedule -- and found in the town's reemergence from "the tornado that forever changed your lives" a lesson for the broader American community.

"The Greensburg class of 2008 has learned that Americans will always rebuild stronger and better than before. Often in life, you're dealt a hand that you did not expect. The test of a community -- and the test of an individual -- is how you play the hand," said Bush, who gave each student a handshake and a diploma.