One year ago, Americans woke up to the news that nature can, and did, exactly what many thought couldn't happen: It destroyed an entire town.

Today, Greensburg is more famous for its own destruction than the two small tourist attractions it boasted before in the Big Well and 1,000-pound meteorite. Well, at least, in a twisted manner now, as that destruction has turned into the largest potential for experimentation on such a large scale in history. It's also the representation of lessons learned from the response to past disasters.

The recovery and response efforts in Greensburg are nothing short of astonishing. No sooner than had the tornado hit, individual people, volunteer groups, student service groups, churches, charities -- even FEMA -- literally were tripping over themselves to get in and help.

For the first 48 hours, the Kansas National Guard and the Kansas Highway Patrol were turning people away by the dozens because the area hadn't even been secured yet. Once the town was reopened (or the remnants that is), everyone wanted to help. Hordes did -- 45,000 truckloads of debris, a burning landfill, and a pile of concrete so large, it was apparently visible from space came out, and a temporary hospital, living quarters, and a volunteer coordination building went up. For once, FEMA managed to not screw anything up.

Let's face it: New Orleans and the Katrina debacle was a natural disaster that turned into a catastrophe by a failure at all levels to get in and rectify things quickly. But the federal response was by far the worst of any group, agency or entity that had anything to do with the crisis, and everyone who isn't a bumbling idiot knows it. Not only was the response deplorable, but the Bush administration's bumbling of relief efforts and aid delivery was less than stellar. Thankfully, that wasn't the case with Greensburg.

Within a week's time, Bush had toured the destruction, and after offering everyone free complimentary hugs, he tacked on a whopping $62 million in aid and emergency funding for good measure, but only after declaring not only Kiowa County, but four other counties, a federal disaster area. And since then, it's only gotten better. I have to admit, that G-dub is batting 1.000 right now, but only in the shadow of a massive strikeout with past screw-ups. Hopefully, he won't strand the residents living in FEMA trailers on base by removing the trailers before people can find other forms of living as he did in New Orleans. In that case, he seemed to be better at batting into a double-play than the Kansas City Royals on a bad day.

Ultimately, I do have to give credit where credit is due. Bush's return on the one-year anniversary to the town to deliver the address to graduates of Greensburg High School is a higher level of class than he's been able to show in past instances. While it could be construed as saving political face in the wake of a flailing lame-duck second term (and maybe it is), there's still some appearances of being genuinely concerned with the well-being of these individuals and their attempts at making history by starting over with nothing.

And between us, that counts as a grand-slam in my book.

Brandon Worf is a reporter at The Hays Daily News. bworf@dailynews.net