Tornado-hit town's energy-efficient rebuilding plan catches the eyes of the Clinton Global Initiative

After a tornado last year devastated West Liberty, Ky., the Appalachian town of 3,500 began an initiative called Rebuilding West Liberty, which was designed to not only help re-build the town but to make it more energy-efficient and serve as a model for other towns looking to create sustainability and entrepreneurship.

The initiative has caught the eye of national leaders, and Morgan County Judge-Executive Tim Conley has been invited to attend the Clinton Global Initiative meeting in June as a member of the Residential Energy Efficiency Working Group, reports former Kentucky state treasurer Jonathan Miller on his site, The Recovering Politician. (Miller is a Democrat and Conley is a Republican.)

After the tornado killed seven people and destroyed 400 homes, businesses, and government structures, the community began rebuilding with energy-efficient and cost-effective techniques. At the conference Conley will provide insight on "rebuilding roughly half of the 300 residential homes that were lost to the storm," Miller writes. 

The solution West Liberty came up with was to construct "150 affordable, highly energy-efficient factory-built and site-built homes," Miller reports. "The three-year project includes a $27 million investment of equity, grants, debt and operating grants to complete the project in West Liberty and scale innovations piloted for other disaster response efforts and affordable housing projects for factory-built homes across the nation." To visit the Clinton Global Initiative site, click here.