Greensburg grant will fund new airport

Ten years after Greensburg was nearly destroyed by a tornado, officials are planning a new airport.

The Kansas Department of Transportation will award Greensburg a $1.08 million grant to develop an airport northeast of town.

It is the largest of 26 grants, worth more than $4 million, announced by the agency for airport improvements around the state.

The Hutchinson News reports (http://bit.ly/2on7Xn7) the Greensburg grant will fund grading and drainage to allow a grass runway about 3 miles east of town. But that’s the first step of what city officials hope is a three-phase, $3.6 million project to build a lighted, 3,200-foot concrete runway that could accommodate medical planes.

In 2007, an EF5 tornado killed 11 people and wiped out most of the western Kansas community.


Information from: The Hutchinson (Kan.) News, http://www.hutchnews.com.]