Dr. Jennifer Akers tends to a kitten Wednesday in Greensburg. Akers was part of a team of veterinarians who helped tend to pets separated from their owners.

Dr. Matt Riegel, of Manhattan, loads a cattle trailer with unclaimed cats Wednesday in Greensburg. Volunteers moved animals from a temporary shelter in Greensburg to the shelter in nearby Pratt.

Greensburg ? When someone tries to enter this city, there’s a good chance one of the first people they’ll meet is from Lawrence.

“We’re just out here, and any other needs that come up, we’re here to help them out,” said Lawrence police Sgt. Kirk Fultz.

Fultz recently led a crew of six officers to Greensburg. They’re part of a team controlling access to the city and patrolling the streets of Greensburg and other nearby towns.

“There’s no way local law enforcement could deal with this,” Fultz said. “It’s amazing the amount of effort, the amount of work and the amount of people it takes to run something like this.”

As Greensburg starts to recover from the 1.7-mile-wide tornado that swept through on May 4, communities from all over the state and country have sent employees to help. Since May 6, 28 workers from Lawrence and Douglas County have been to Greensburg or plan to go in the coming week.

Douglas County Clerk Jamie Shew and Ollie Wenger, a computer specialist with the county, helped set up City Hall in a trailer just south of the Kiowa County Courthouse, one of the few buildings left standing after the tornado. Wenger helped Greensburg city leaders complete payroll Wednesday.

“I think it’s hard to understand all those little things that make a city function and when it’s wiped out, nothing happens. No one gets paid. No one has electricity anymore,” Wenger said.

Running the restoration efforts for Greensburg is Lawrence Fire Department’s Division Chief Bill Stark. As incident commander on site, he worked with Greensburg and Kiowa County leaders to assure the process is running smoothly.

“The emergency manager here, the city administrator, their houses are gone. They’re trying to make decisions but they’re worn out, so we work on their behalf,” Stark said.

Lawrence Fire Chief Mark Bradford replaced Stark on Thursday, and Stark hopes it won’t take too much longer to completely reopen the city to residents and businesses that are ready to rebuild their properties.

“We’ve got to get the city ready to get them in here. We’ve got to get the water on, the electricity on, so they can get in here and get back to living. In the long run, the people of Greensburg are going to take care of themselves,” Stark said.

‘This is home’

Among those people are Bob and Ann Dixson. They rode out the storm in their basement and have spent two weeks clearing their property. A hand-painted sign decorates the one wall of their house that still stands. It reads, “Future home of the Dixson Family; We are blessed.” They have already made the decision to build a new home on their land.

“This is home,” Bob Dixson said.

“I can’t imagine us living anywhere else,” Ann Dixson added. “I have a commitment to the people here, and Bob does, too. We want to encourage people to stay, and we want this town to be new. It’s going to be different, but it’s going to be beautiful.”

Their daughter, Stacy Barnes, lives in Lawrence. She spent the week after the tornado trying to salvage what she could from her family home and said she’s never been so proud to be from Greensburg.

“People were mad Saturday and Sunday that we couldn’t get into town because they wanted to get in there and work,” Barnes said.

In the end, the Dixsons feel thankful to have climbed out of their basement, alive and uninjured, with their dog and cat. Other residents got separated from their pets in the storm, often leaving traumatized animals trapped under the debris.

“None of them barked. None of them meowed. None of them cried. It’s like they were in complete and total shock,” said Midge Grinstead, executive director of the Lawrence Humane Society.

For two weeks, off and on, Grinstead set traps and sifted through rubble, looking for family pets. On several occasions, she reunited them with their owners. She recalls finding a border collie tangled in wire trapped under a roof and another little dog named Freckles who found shelter under the remnants of its owner’s sofa.

“They lift that up, and there’s that little dog, five days later. Just looking at us like, ‘about time,'” Grinstead said.

Since the tornado, Grinstead said the temporary shelter in Greensburg has worked with about 450 animals, mostly cats. Owners have claimed most of them, but they moved the remaining animals to Pratt in a cattle trailer Wednesday, where shelter operators were unequipped to handle the large population. Grinstead has trained workers and says they still need more crates for the animals.

Through the whole ordeal, residents have maintained a sense of humor. On one lot, a set of three stairs leads to a house-sized hole in the ground. A sign near the steps reads, “Yes, We’re Open.”

Bert Nash helps out

Bert Nash Community Mental Health Center in Lawrence also sent mental health care workers to Greensburg, including chief executive officer David Johnson. The workers deliver water to residents and volunteers working in the city and engage them in conversation.

“We’re getting out among people and making sure they get help,” Johnson said. “We’re letting them know this is a normal response to an abnormal situation.”

Johnson, who also traveled to Greensburg as the president of the National Association of Community Mental Health Centers, said workers from the center in Greensburg could not do everything on their own. He reports that a third of the center’s employees lost their housing.

“So they’re working hard to provide services while struggling with a number of staff people who have lost everything,” he said.

– 6News reporter Laura McHugh can be reached at 832-6304.