The streets of Greensburg were silent, except for some birds. Everywhere Larry Schwarm turned his lens, a new scene of devastation presented itself.
The remains of a library, with books scattered like multi-colored dominoes.
A bank stuffed to the brim with debris rather than money.
A park, where a battered swingset still stood out amidst the ruin.
His camera recorded it all, though not without difficulty. Even for an experienced photographer, some surroundings hit too hard. Especially in this case.
For Schwarm, this used to be home.
Morning run
Schwarm’s been a part of Emporia State University now for several years, an art professor whose pictures of prairie fires have drawn widespread acclaim. But he grew up on a small farm just outside Greensburg, a farm his parents still own. He left the area after graduating high school, though he still visits.
But until Saturday, May 5, none of those visits had ever begun with a 3 a.m. phone call from his dad.
“He’s got that saying — ‘The only thing worse than getting a wrong number at 3 in the morning is getting a right one,’” Schwarm said. “It was very static-filled, very erratic. He said ‘We’re OK, but Greensburg is gone.’”
Schwarm was in the car within half an hour. He drove 80 mph all the way down.
“I figured I could get away with it, especially if I told them where I was going,” he said.
The Friday night tornado had missed his parents, who hadn’t even known of it until a neighbor knocked on their door at 2 a.m. Schwarm had to use country roads to get there after hitting a roadblock near Haviland. Five miles from Greensburg, the trees began to look like it was winter — no leaves or birds to be seen.
His dad met him at the door, then took him to some neighbors east of town who had been hit. Their home was destroyed and a barn had collapsed on their 15 calves.
“We helped dig them out,” Schwarm said. “Amazingly, all 15 survived. One had a broken ankle.”
All of them kept salvaging what they could until about 3 p.m. Then Schwarm decided to see what had happened to Greensburg itself. The Guard had sealed the roads a mile outside of town, so he walked across the fields until he made his way in.
He wasn’t ready. No one could be.
Silent town
“It got to me more than I thought it would,” Schawrm said. “I left right after high school, but it’s always been my home. It’s where I grew up, my reference point.”
Now there were no reference points. Landmarks were blown down. Buildings were gone. At many times, Schwarm wasn’t even sure what street he was on.
“At first you’re sort of awestruck by the devastation,” he said. “But then, when I went to the schools I used to go to, I started crying — just this overwhelming sadness at all the history that had been lost, all the peoples’ lives that had been changed forever.”
He spent several hours wandering the town, photographing the damage. No one challenged him. It might have been the Red Cross T-shirt he had coincidentally put on that morning. It might have been that the officials moving through the town didn’t expect to see anyone else.
For whatever reason, he was free to work. And work he did.
Some shots showed pure devastation — a collapsed fire station with partly buried trucks or a school where only the entrance remained recognizable. Other pictures found more bizarre quirks of the storm, like the Venetian blinds that had wrapped themselves into ropes, looking more like art objects than window coverings.
Schwarm wanted to document the disaster, maybe even to find some surviving beauty among the horror. But his sadness grew as he continued, especially as he thought about the survivors.
“I can’t imagine what it was like for the people who lived there, who went through it,” Schwarm said. “But they’re probably going to live with that fear and depression for years, I think.”
Finally, he left the town. Fifty feet from the city limits, a National Guard soldier stopped Schwarm — the first one all day. They talked a while as the soldier explained that he shouldn’t be there.
“I said I was heading out anyway,” Schwarm said. “He said ‘Good luck.’”
Coming back
Schwarm stayed nine days as the community began to put itself back together. Mennonites arrived to provide help and food. Schwarm’s parents put up a dozen people in their home and his wife arrived to lend a hand. Electricity was sporadic, phone service gone.
But the heart of the town had survived.
“One of the things I was taken with was how most of the people I talked to ... they had been affected, their houses had been blown away, but they almost had a sense of humor about it,” Schwarm said. “More than a few people said to me it was kind of a blessing, because there were no decisions to be made.They were all pretty philosophical about it.”
Schwarm’s back in Emporia now with a lot of film to develop. He wants people to remember Greensburg and its people, even after the spotlight fades.
To him, they’re heroes.
“Everybody wanted to help everybody,” he said. “The community is the family.”