"Greensburg": Rising from the rubble

Four months ago it was my privilege to spend a day in Greensburg, Kansas, listening to people talk about rebuilding their town after an EF-5 tornado in May 2007.

Now it's your turn. “Greensburg,” a 13-week series on the new Planet Green channel owned by Discovery, begins Sunday. Told by its own citizens (after an intro from executive producer Leo DiCaprio), “Greensburg” retells the story of how the Kiowa County seat -- whose citizens were so eco-unconscious that, as one of them put it, “I thought green was a color of paint” -- decided on an environmental-to-the-max rebuild.

The city, 95 percent destroyed in the storm, is now planning to put up a City Hall, Big Well Museum and other public spaces that will be among the greenest to be found in the U.S., with renewable energy, water reuse and other innovations.

As I wrote in February, the L.A.-based production company Pilgrim Films has had people in Greensburg since last summer following around residents and outsiders like John Picard, the sustainability expert who was called in by Greensburg city administrator Steve Hewitt.

Picard is his usual Moses-off-the-mountain self: He tells one group of locals that Americans have “lost our way” and that Greensburg “could create a soul and a center” not just for its community but the country.

But it's Hewitt whose voice is the most authoritative. He's a local guy, and despite his training and life lived among tornadoes, he's as overwhelmed as anyone. He confesses, “I have never managed a catastrophe at this level.”

What Hewitt lacks in experience, though, he makes up for in savvy. He seems to have sensed right away that the only way to succeed at such a task -- rebuilding a declining town in the middle of nowhere -- was with a big, marketable idea.

There are naysayers, of course, and they clash with Hewitt and Picard (scenes that the show amps up to maximum effect -- it is an entertainment program, after all). But others buy in quickly. Thinking green, one person points out, is as simple as replacing a drafty, 60-year-old house with a new, energy-efficient one.

Other ideas are so radical that you have to admire the hundreds of locals who cheered when they were laid out in full. The new master plan, drawn up by BNIM Architects of Kansas City and adopted by the city council, looks like Tomorrowland with its green roofs, zero-carbon-footprint design and cozy streetscape of occupied storefronts. It's like a northern California suburb from 2015, plopped next to a grain elevator.

I'm sure everyone there realizes that Picard, BNIM and Discovery are their Pied Pipers, and that bringing in TV cameras and eco-celebrities gives Greensburg a tremendous advantage when competing for investment dollars.

For now, it works. The Venn diagram of Greensburg's rebuilding and Planet Green's launch overlaps at consumption. Still, The Planet Green concept will be troubling to those who think that using fewer of the Earth's resources is inextricably tied to lowering consumption.

I found it interesting, during my visit, that the Mennonite Disaster Service in Greensburg wasn't sending volunteers to build new structures but to help fix up the few that are still standing. Simple lifestyles don't mesh well with a broader culture that's urged to consume, almost out of national duty.

But I don't want to rain on Greensburg's parade. I want its greening to be complete in both senses of the word -- ecologically and economically. “Greensburg” is a straightforward and thus highly compelling chronicle of the early stages of that good work.

“Greensburg” airs at 8 p.m. CT Sundays on the new Planet Green, formerly Discovery Home Channel (digital cable).