Coup de Grace on Kansas Town

Dan Barry: It is morning in Greensburg, population uncertain. The sun rises from the flat-line horizon to cast light upon the tidy curbside piles of debris that had been homes, the untidy piles of brick that had been downtown, the denuded trees that now look like pale hands reaching skyward.
In the context of Kansas, the violent thunderstorm that had rolled through overnight was no more than a street-cleaning; a cosmic throat-clearing, really. Now, on the last day of spring and seven weeks after the tornado, another morning has come to say it was not a dream, your entire town really is gone.

In the context of Kansas, the violent thunderstorm that had rolled through overnight was no more than…