At the end of a National Public Radio interview Monday about the Greensburg tornado, the interviewer thanked Kansas House Minority Leader Dennis McKinney for his time.

Without hesitation, McKinney, a Greensburg resident who rode out the storm huddled with his daughter in a bathtub in their basement, said, “Thank you for caring.”

“We’re a small town in southwest Kansas and we didn’t think anyone knew where we were – or cared,” he continued. “It’s just nice to know that everyone really does care.”

Sometimes tragedy can bring out the best in people.

Immediately after the storm passed through, McKinney rushed next door to try to find a neighbor who waited too long to join him and his daughter in their basement. He told of working with the town’s school superintendent and a school principal to dig through the rubble and rescue the woman and her infant son.

He talked about the days after the tornado when, despite the fact that most people had lost their money and identification and the town’s banks were leveled, somehow things were happening and there was a real effort to “get things going again.”

He praised the efforts of emergency personnel, many of whom are volunteers in an area like Greensburg. The Kansas National Guard was noticeably short on equipment, he said, but the emergency response of the Guard and other agencies was efficient and well organized.

Despite all of the outside help and all of the caring, however, getting things “going again” in Greensburg will be a long haul. McKinney and others seem confident that the town will rise again, but it will take much time, perseverance and plenty of help.

To an outside observer, all of the visits by politicians and national news media to Greensburg this week seem a little gratuitous, even exploitative. Officials might be moved to provide extra help after seeing the devastation first hand, but the visits always seem a little too staged for political advantage. Given the number of broadcasts from national news and weather networks, it seemed there must be a television truck on every Greensburg street corner this week.

One would think all these visitors would simply be getting in the way of townspeople who need to grieve, then get about the work of picking up their lives. But McKinney’s comments remind us that the attention showered on a town like Greensburg after tragedy strikes also is a reminder to residents that they are not alone and people care – even about a tiny town in southwest Kansas.