The streets of Greensburg are full of activity Tuesday as cleanup crews and residents sift through the debris from the tornado that killed nine people and destroyed most of the town Friday night.

Greensburg ? Amid the downed utility poles, stripped trees and rubble the massive tornado left behind, the county courthouse and the Southern Plains Co-op’s grain elevator, the tallest building here, still stand.

With nine people dead and more than 90 percent of this south-central Kansas community destroyed, residents picked through pile after pile of debris Tuesday and talked about rebuilding. Although he had to sleep in a friend’s pickup, Mayor Lonnie McCollum was talking heartily about the future, envisioning a town that would look more like a new suburb outside a big city.

While outsiders wondered whether too little remains intact for that kind of comeback, they also acknowledged Greensburg’s status as the Kiowa County seat and a regional economic hub for area farmers make its survival plausible.

“I don’t see this mess. I see what it’s going to be,” said McCollum, a sea of severed trees, crumpled vehicles and wrecked buildings behind him. “Who wouldn’t want to live in a brand-new town? Who wouldn’t want to have a business in a whole new town?”

Still, McCollum couldn’t predict when basic services such as sewer, water or electricity would be restored, and officials were trying to find a place for mobile homes sent by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Danny McLarty, the location manager for the Southern Plains Co-op, and his employees were working Tuesday to salvage what they could, clean the mess and count their losses. Although the grain elevator was still standing, all that was left of its business office was about half of its outer shell, its roof stripped off and a pile of wood and stone where part of the building once stood.

Posted signs said, “Construction under progress,” and McLarty said he was keeping all 14 employees on the payroll.

“This is a farm community. The elevator has to be here. Farmers have to have a place to buy their supplies,” McLarty said. “We will be here for them – that is what a farming community is all about.”

Before the storm hit, Greensburg had been facing the problem of an aging and declining population, mirroring Midwestern trends. The 2000 Census said more than a quarter of its residents were 65 or older; its population peaked at nearly 2,000 in 1960 and has declined to about 1,400.

How much Greensburg recovers depends on the energy its leaders show and the networks – church, social and business – residents have formed, said Bruce Weber, director of Oregon State University’s rural studies program.

“You could probably make a place that both the desire and the resources are there and the town serves an economic function for the region,” Weber said. “An external trauma often gives energy to where you wouldn’t have seen it before.”

Greensburg State Bank set up two tents on the sidewalk outside the remains of its building so residents could do business.

For customer Clorene Smith, it was important because she fled her tornado-ravaged house without identification. But the small town bank knows her.

“It is kind of nice I can write a check and get cash,” she said.

Down the street at The People’s Bank, vice president Steve Mills said his four employees will stay on the payroll and the bank will also give them time to work on their own property.

“We will build back here in Greensburg; there is no doubt about that,” Mills said.

The storm that hit Greensburg on Friday has also been blamed in the deaths of a Macksville police officer in Stafford County and an unidentified man in Pratt County. An Ottawa County woman died Sunday after a new round of storms spawned a tornado that struck a camper.