Thousands of RAGBRAI riders stop in Greenfield two months after tornado

Thousands of RAGBRAI riders stopped in Greenfield Tuesday just two months after a tornado devastated parts of the southwest Iowa community.

On the way into town, cyclists rode past homes destroyed by the May 21 tornado that killed four people and injured dozens.

Then they entered Greenfield’s main square, which wasn’t in the tornado’s path. It looked like any other RAGBRAI meeting town, full of people in bike shorts lining up at food tents and resting in the shade.

Greenfield resident Mackenzie Meisenheimer said right after the tornado, it wasn’t clear if the town would still be able to host RAGBRAI.

“After it happened, it was like a movie scene, really,” she said. “You don’t expect it until it happens to you.”

But she said Greenfield got a lot of support, and volunteers worked hard to make it happen.

“It’s a good thing we had RAGBRAI, though, because it gave us a reason to clean up,” Meisenheimer said. “It gave us a reason to get ourselves together a little bit and something to look forward to. Having people here looking at what’s left of our awesome town. I mean, we have so much left that’s still here and beautiful. So, I’m happy that people are here looking at that and supporting the town.”

RAGBRAI rider Dana Kramer of Urbandale said she saw pictures of the devastation in Greenfield right after the tornado, and she would have understood if the town decided to not be a stop on the ride.

After riding past the part of town that was hit hard, Kramer said it looked “pretty good” and that Greenfield did a lot of cleanup in two months.

“I thought I would see a little bit more of the devastation from the storm, but they’ve gotten pretty much everything torn down,” she said. “And they’ve started the rebuilding processes. Some houses are still boarded up. But I think it shows the strength of the city in wanting to get things back to normal and continue to host RAGBRAI.”

Kramer said she was planning to buy lunch, and maybe a T-shirt in Greenfield.

“This is where we plan to spend some money just to help the town out,” she said.

Meisenheimer, the Greenfield resident, said she’ll take a break after RAGBRAI.

“We’ve had a lot going on, so a lot of us are tired and burned out,” she said.

Meisenheimer said Greenfield residents are still waiting on insurance companies and builders to continue repairing and rebuilding parts of the town.

“We’re getting through it, one day at a time,” she said.