All language subtitles for Life.After.People.S03E01.Water.World.1080p.HULU.WEB-DL.H264-RAWR_track3_[eng]

What would happen

if every human being
on earth disappeared?

No matter how we might vanish,

this is the story
of what could happen

to the haunting world
we leave behind.

Now on "Life After People,"

After we're gone,
the flood gates open.

It's not a matter

of if water can destroy
everything we've ever built,

it's just a matter of how.

Mother nature
drowns The Big Easy.

The devastation
would be unimaginable.

Instead of all those bars
being full of tourists,

they'd just be full
of human waste.

The Nile
River threatens

to rewrite the history of Egypt.

The city of Luxor, gone,
Cairo, Egypt, also gone.

It would just be
utter devastation

among the most iconic cities
and landmarks in Egypt.

And the ghosts of
the legendary River Thames

come back to haunt
the city of London.

The biggest concentration
of unexploded ordnance

from World War II is at
the bottom of the Thames.

If that were to explode,

that would be the biggest
non-nuclear explosion

on earth in history.

From
monuments to waterways,

dams to skyscrapers,
without people,

the planet will be
radically transformed.

Welcome to Earth,
population, zero.

Across the globe, major
cities are silent,

no families, no traffic,
not a single pedestrian.

In New Orleans where the
air once buzzed with jazz

and the laughter
of rowdy tourists,

a new sound is about to
take its place, rain.

In some places, New Orleans

is as much as 12
feet below sea level,

and it's surrounded by
three bodies of water,

the Mississippi River,
Lake Pontchartrain

and the Gulf of Mexico.

If heavy rains or
some storm surge come,

the city is gonna be
completely flooded.

It used to
take hundreds of workers

to keep New Orleans from
flooding during storms.

Now there is no
one keeping watch.

All that remains is the
machinery they left behind.

There's this astonishing
network of engineered systems

that all have to work to keep
New Orleans from flooding

every single time it rains.

There are more than 68,000
storm drains across the city,

funneling rainwater
through enough pipe

that if you stretched it
out to its fullest distance,

it would go from
Manhattan in New York

all the way to
Key West, Florida.

Over a hundred
pumps were designed

to move all the water from the
city into Lake Pontchartrain.

Those pumps can
move half the volume

of an Olympic swimming
pool every second.

The biggest of those pumps
have the pumping power

of 700 fire trucks.

The system was
built more than 100 years ago,

a patchwork maintained by
vigilant human oversight.

After people, the pumps
are abandoned, overtaxed,

and struggling to keep up.

It wouldn't even
take a powerful storm

to overwhelm the pumps

without the people
there to maintain it.

The regular rainfall would be
enough to over run the city.

All of the sewage
underneath the city

would flow into the streets

and into the lower
floors of the building.

So instead of all those
bars being full of tourists,

they'd just be full
of human waste.

The city
is already mutating,

but all around it,

there's a web of relics
left behind by mankind,

built to keep disaster at bay.

To protect New Orleans
from the surrounding waters,

in the 20th century, the
Army Corps of Engineers

built hundreds of
miles of levees.

Not only that, after
Hurricane Katrina,

they spent $14 billion
upgrading the network.

If you don't maintain
a structure like a levee,

it is going to fall apart.

And for a city like New
Orleans, that is bad news

because New Orleans
is just subject

to so many hurricanes coming
in, to floods coming in.

The levees
are holding for now,

but water is a constant menace

and a powerful storm hits New
Orleans once every 10 years,

so it's only a matter of time
before the city is drowning.

Across the Atlantic on the banks

of the storied Thames
River, what was once one

of the most significant
cities on the planet

is now a ghost town,

no more guards outside
London's Buckingham Palace,

not a soul in Trafalgar Square.

But high above
the empty streets,

Big Ben still rings for now.

It's sort of romantic to
imagine a life after people

where Big Ben is calling out,

ringing day after day after day,

and there's no one
there to hear it,

but the truth is it
would stop ringing

after just a couple days.

And the reason behind that is
that it's a mechanical clock.

Is not powered by electricity.

Big Ben is powered by gravity.

So at the top of the tower
there was this giant weight

that's about as heavy as a
fully loaded pickup truck.

So over the course
of a few days,

that weight slowly descends,

which triggers a set
of pulleys and gears

which keep the clock
turning on time.

Even though
there's no one to hear them,

the automated system drives
hammers that still ring the bell

just as they have for
more than a century.

But a human has to
go into that tower

and turn that crank
to lift the weight up.

So without any person
to turn that crank,

the weight's just gonna descend
to the bottom of its system

and everything goes silent.

For nearly 200 years,

even through the German
Blitz during World War II,

the bell continued to toll.

Today, three days after
people, Big Ben has stopped.

Out on the oceans,

the world's congested
shipping lanes

were once a carefully
controlled dance,

but just one week after people,

the choreography is unraveling

and the seas are
descending into chaos.

Ships use less than
1% of the vast ocean

as shipping lanes.

In those lanes, every day
there are 100,000 ships.

Things are gonna get
very crowded very fast.

Oceans cover
nearly three quarters

of the earth,

but ships only travel along
a few narrow highways,

the safest and
most direct paths.

Now they're teaming not with
trade, but with ghost ships,

and among them is the largest
cruise ship in history.

This ship is a monster,

it is five times the
size of the Titanic.

It's got three dozen restaurants

and it's got seven
full-sized pools,

including an entire waterpark.

The food and fresh
water it contains

weigh almost twice as much
as the Statue of Liberty.

The ship itself weighs
half a billion pounds.

That is more than
double the weight

of a Nimitz-class
aircraft carrier.

Modern cruise
ships have systems

that help prevent collisions.

The lights still flash,
the alarms still wail,

they shatter the lonely
silence on the bridge,

but now, there's
no one to react.

Just to put this
in perspective,

this thing is about
two thirds the size

of the Empire State Building.

So imagine, 70 floors of a
skyscraper barreling towards you

at 30 miles an hour.

It's gonna cut
through small boats

like a hot knife through butter.

For the next two
weeks until her fuel runs dry,

this metal giant will batter
everything in front of her,

but out here in the vast
and unforgiving ocean,

there are plenty of things

that can bring a
journey to an end.

Two weeks after people

and the biggest cruise ship in
the world has no passengers,

no captain, no crew.

The collision alarms
wail on the empty bridge,

but without anyone to hear
them, she's still a holy terror.

Smaller boats are no
match for this thing.

It's about the size of
three football fields.

In shipping lanes clogged
with thousands of boats,

this ship will leave a path
of destruction in its wake.

She's merciless,

cutting through smaller
vessels like driftwood,

but out here, even the
smallest flaw can be fatal.

This ship burns 80,000 gallons
of fuel every single day.

That's how much water a
typical household runs through

in about eight to nine months.

And after two weeks, just two
weeks, it's running on fumes.

With one last gasp,

the great ship's
engine sputter and die.

She's still a float
but utterly adrift

on the unforgiving ocean.

They have these
sensors onboard

so that if the ship starts
rolling side to side too much,

these stabilizers reduce
the magnitude of the roll.

There are these retractable
fins below the waterline

and they act like
flaps on airplane wings

controlling the
angles of the ship.

These fins have enough
control authority

to counteract about
90% of the ship's roll.

Problem is that fuel doesn't

just make the world's
biggest cruise ship go.

It generates all of the
electricity on board,

and it's that electricity
that powers the stabilizers.

Without
people, without power,

the ship is drifting
away from shipping lanes

and into the vast, lonely seas.

Now the sky is churning,
a storm is brewing

and it has its
sights set on her.

You have this huge ship,

it's just been plowing
through these shipping lanes

that has been just
unsinkable until finally,

it kind of isn't
unsinkable anymore.

It's a sitting duck

and those automatic
stabilizers don't do anything.

This cruise ship has swimming
pools on its upper deck,

and these pools are quite big,

the same weight as a blue whale.

Imagine a blue whale
throwing itself

from side to side on
top of ship's deck,

it's definitely gonna
rock that boat for sure.

Even without any of those
active stabilization systems,

a ship this big is
hard to capsize.

That said, a rogue wave,
70, maybe 90 feet tall,

hitting that ship from the side,

that could be enough
to capsize it.

She was once the
crown jewel of the ocean,

a monument to human ambition.

Now, with no one to mourn her,

she slips beneath
the waves forever.

On the other side of the globe,

the Nile has been the lifeblood

of the lush Nile River
Valley for millennia.

But 10 weeks after
people, this artery,

vital to the cradle of life,
is already on its deathbed.

It's hard to conceive
that after a millennia

of flowing through the most
important cities of Egypt,

just 10 weeks without people,

the Nile would
slow to a trickle.

Almost immediately,
all that salt water

is gonna come in from
the Mediterranean,

it's gonna completely transform
that entire ecosystem.

The root
of the problem

lies 450 miles to the south.

The Aswan High Dam is a
vestige of human engineering.

Built in 1970, it
tamed the mighty Nile

and created the Lake
Nasser reservoir.

Now it stands guard over land

that will never be farmed again.

For thousands of years,

the Nile was totally
unpredictable.

Sometimes it would flood and
that would destroy farmland,

other times there
would be droughts

and there wouldn't be
enough water for irrigation.

The dam allowed flood
water to be collected,

protecting the
river valley below.

The water could then
be released year round,

allowing farmers to
irrigate their crops.

After people, the
dam still stands resolute,

but it's no longer a sentinel,

it's an executioner, bringing
death to the Nile Valley.

There would be almost no
water coming from the dam,

and there would be no
one there to adjust it

when a dry spell hit.

At the same time, rain
continues to come in

and that's gonna
fill it up over time.

Just 10
weeks after people,

Lake Nasser is rising unchecked,

straining against its walls,

there's no one left
to hold it back.

And if it breaks free,

it will swallow everything
from the tombs of kings

to the streets of modern Cairo.

In London, one
year after people,

wildlife roams the abandoned
streets of a once great empire.

The mighty Thames quietly
rises inch by inch.

For now, it whispers,
but soon, it will roar.

The Thames has a long and
terrible history of flooding

going back centuries.

According to legend, the
bronze lion-head sculptures

that lined the
embankment of the Thames

served as an old time
flood warning system.

There's even a rhyme,

"When the lions drink,
London will sink.

When it's up to their manes,
we'll go down the drains.

When it's all sucked, then we're
all," you know how it goes.

The last line
of defense for the city

is the Thames Barrier.

Completed in 1974, it has
stood guard for over 50 years,

but can it still
do its duty now?

The Thames Barrier is a
series of 10 steel gates

that can reach five
stories above the water.

Each of them is 36 feet wide.

They're built out of
high strength steel,

and each weighs about the same

as a massive construction crane.

It's like a temporary dam,

and then they can be dropped
once the flood subsides

to allow the natural flow
of the river to resume.

A lot of what that barrier
does is indeed automatic.

There are systems in
place to monitor rainfall,

to assess flood risk.

A human operator gets all the
information from the system,

then decides whether to
open the gates and when.

The barrier is down,

and now it'll stay
that way forever.

The Thames is biding its time,
waiting for the right moment

to bring London to its knees.

But there's an
even bigger threat

lurking beneath its surface.

During the Blitz of London,

the Germans dropped more
than 26 million pounds

of bombs on London, and many
of those never exploded.

A lot of them landed
in the River Thames

and unexploded bombs
are quite dangerous.

So in January, 2017,

a German bomb was found at the
bottom of the Thames River.

Because of this, all river
traffic had to cease.

Buses, subway systems
were shut down,

all of this until they could
safely tow the bomb away

and have it detonated elsewhere.

The Nazis
weren't the only ones

to leave their mark
beneath the Thames.

Somewhere in the murky depths,
a US naval ship slumbers,

its cargo deadlier than any
bomb dropped from the skies.

The biggest concentration
of unexploded ordnance

from World War II is at
the bottom of the Thames,

in the SS Richard Montgomery.

It was a US naval destroyer

that was carrying
1,400 tons of munitions

when it ran aground at
the mouth of the Thames.

They attempted to unload the
cargo from the SS Montgomery,

but the hull cracked and the
ship just sank way too fast.

That includes 286
giant blockbuster bombs

and more than 2,500
cluster bombs.

Now, those cluster bombs
may not be the biggest,

but in a lot of ways,
they're the scariest.

Cluster bombs are transported
with their fuses in place,

so they are far more likely
than other kinds of bombs

to spontaneously explode.

If that were to explode,

that would be the biggest
non-nuclear explosion

on Earth in history.

Once there was
a system of precautions

to safeguard the sleeping
danger, but without people,

it's only a matter of
time before it's awakened.

There's an exclusion zone.

It goes 1,500 feet
in every direction.

It's on every
navigational chart,

there are warning
buoys in the water.

You've got coast guard
ships, you've got drones.

All of this, this
elaborate system

is to make sure no one
ever gets close enough

to trigger an explosion.

You know, life after people,
there's no exclusion zone.

You've just got a bunch of ships

that are drifting
around randomly.

So it's not a question

of whether or not something's
gonna bump into that ship,

it's just a question of when.

The entire area is
shaped like a funnel

that leads from the
North Sea towards London.

If it's left undisturbed,
there's a very small chance

that Montgomery
would ever explode,

but it wouldn't take much.

All it would need
is a very small bump

or even a big vibration
to set that thing off.

A lonely fishing boat

slips past the exclusion zone
and into the SS Montgomery.

Welcome to London one
year after people.

On the River Thames, a
lonely derelict vessel drifts

toward the mast of
the SS Montgomery.

And in one thunderous instant,

1,400 tons of sunken
munitions detonate.

A massive fireball
shoots up into the sky.

There is a powerful shockwave

which can shatter windows
from miles around.

That massive explosion

is gonna displace
a lot of water,

creating essentially
a river tsunami

that's gonna sweep
through the city.

The devastation would
be unimaginable,

would buckle
steel-reinforced buildings

and just smash through
concrete walls.

Water is a very
powerful thing.

It can exert an enormous
amount of force.

Just one foot of water can
float a car down the street.

A 30 foot tidal wave tosses
cars around like toys.

It's like being hit by a
dump truck full of TNT.

With the Thames Barrier down,

there would be nothing
to reduce the impact.

Water would smash through
the doors of Parliament,

the Tower of London and Big Ben,

and the lower floors would
be completely flooded.

The London Underground
would be inundated.

I mean, it would become this
pitch black, watery hell.

And then the water begins to
eat at the sides of the tunnel.

And slowly but surely,

the foundations of
London begin to crumble.

St. Paul's
Cathedral still stands,

so would The Shard
and Westminster Abbey.

But water is working its way
into the city's foundations.

How long can it survive while
decay spreads from within?

Across the pond, five
years after people,

Mother Nature is creeping

through the streets of New
Orleans, swallowing at whole.

The air is thick with
humidity and rain,

the wooden structures
are rotting,

and the city's abandoned web
of defenses against storms

is crumbling as well.

Just like buildings,
the levees would erode.

You'd start to see them crack
and get substantially weaker.

Levees themselves
can be quite fragile

and require careful
inspection and maintenance.

Those levees, they're
in big trouble.

Water is eroding
the levees' foundations,

but there's another
destructive force at work,

nutria or swamp rats,

monstrous rodents the
size of small dogs.

This isn't erosion,
it's invasion.

Nutria are an
invasive species.

They were brought to New Orleans

in the 1930s for fur farming.

Originally, the nutria
were confined to farms.

But then a hurricane
came through, they escaped,

and today, it's estimated

there are 20 million
of them running wild.

They'd burrow into those
levees and they compromise them,

and over time, those
levees are going to fail

because of that nutria activity,

and that means the city is
gonna be completely flooded.

Nutria are
spreading like a plague,

gnawing through earth and stone,

hollowing out The Big
Easy's last line of defense.

The city is fragile and exposed,

and storms are gathering
on the horizon.

Five years later, deep
in the Sahara Desert,

the Lake Nasser
reservoir has come alive.

Hunters stalk their prey

and the deadliest one of all
is silent, patient, ancient,

far older than
civilization itself.

Crocodiles were around
235 million years ago.

They survived the
extinction event

that wiped out the dinosaurs,

and then they thrived
another 65 million years.

Vegetation will
move in quickly

all around the reservoir,

and rapidly the area will
become completely overgrown.

So it's essentially
gonna turn into marshland

and what's gonna move in there?

Nile crocodiles.

Even though there
are more crocs,

there's in fact less food.

Usually crocodiles often
feed off of the livestock

or the fish stock, or just
simple trash that we throw away.

But without humans around,

they're just gonna have
to rely on natural prey.

Crocs would end up

fighting over the
fish and the birds,

then jackals and
hyenas would come

to the water's edge and compete.

I mean, you might
think of Lake Nasser

as this kind of crocodile
paradise without humanity,

but actually it would be
more like a gladiator pit.

Lake Nasser
churns with ancient violence

as Nile crocodiles wage
their prehistoric wars,

unaware that right beside them,

the Aswan Dam is battling
the ravages of time.

The dam is made
of rock and clay,

and the water is present,
always trying to destroy it.

So without regular maintenance,
the water is going to win.

People also maintain the dam

by removing sediment from
the gates and tunnels.

So without people there,
the sediment would build up,

that would clog them,

and that would lead to
greater pressures on the dam.

The waters
behind the Aswan Dam

grow higher and higher
season after season,

and the concrete groans
under the weight.

But up river, there's an
even bigger danger lurking.

The Nile flows from
south to north,

and there's an even more
massive dam in Ethiopia

that could spell doom
for the whole valley.

The Grand Ethiopian
Renaissance Dam,

also known as Gerd,

is the largest dam in Africa.

It can hold back enough water

to fill roughly three million
Olympic sized swimming pools.

The Gerd is built on a
very seismically active area

of Eastern Africa.

This is where two tectonic
plates are being torn apart

in what's called a rift,

it's actually called the
Great African Rift Valley

running through there.

The more water that's stored
in the reservoir,

well, that's more weight

pressing down
on those fault line,

and that can absolutely
trigger an earthquake.

Minor
earthquakes shake this land

almost every year,

like tiny warnings beneath
the sand and stone.

A bigger jolt could
break the Nile free,

sending it surging toward
the weakening Aswan Dam,

and the question
isn't if, it's when.

For 50 years, mankind
has been a mere memory.

Wooden homes were the first to
go, rotting away into ruins.

Now, even concrete and steel
are starting to crumble,

bringing the most modern
buildings to their knees.

The moment water finds its
way into a crack or crevice,

it's the beginning of the end.

Water's gonna work
its way through cracks,

and eventually it's gonna get
to rebar inside the concrete.

Now, that steel rebar is
gonna rust and rust expands,

letting more water in,

and the whole process is
gonna repeat over and over

until eventually
everything falls apart.

The levee system
that protects the city

has also been ravaged
by the elements,

and its foundations
have been undermined

by giant swamp rats.

Louisiana averages a Category
4 storm every few decades,

and now, when one
prowling just offshore,

New Orleans isn't
bracing for impact,

it's awaiting its demise.

There is a world of difference

between a Category 1
hurricane and a Category 4.

A Category 1, we're
talking wind speeds

of 75 to 95 miles an hour.

We're bending trees, we're
doing some damage to buildings,

there's flooding, but
a Category 4 hurricane

is like a different planet.

Those wind speeds
are way higher,

130 to 156 miles an hour.

We are ripping trees
out of the ground,

we are destroying
entire buildings.

The storm
slams into New Orleans

with savage force,

tearing through what time
had already weakened.

It's not a natural
disaster, it's a reckoning.

The levees have been eroding,

nutria have been burrowing
into their foundations.

It's actually remarkable how
long the system has lasted,

but without humans
around to make repairs,

the levees are no match
for a Category 4 hurricane.

Wooden buildings that
have been rotting for years

would be gone in an instant.

Steel and concrete structures

that have been
eroding for decades,

last minutes longer than that.

In only 50 years,

so much of the New
Orleans we know, is gone.

In the French Quarter,

the storm leaves Jackson Square

and Preservation Hall in ruins.

Just beyond the wreckage,
one titan still stands,

battered, weathered, but
unbroken, the Superdome.

The Superdome is the
largest fixed dome structure

in the world.

It can hold 83,000 people,
which to give you an idea,

is about the size of the
population of Flint, Michigan,

and from the ground
to the top of the dome

is as tall as a
Statue of Liberty.

The foundations
of the Superdome

were built on these pilings,

these concrete
pillars that go down

through the ground 165 feet.

That distance is like two,
three times longer than it

is for a lot of skyscrapers
in other places.

It was also built with
pressure treated concrete

reinforced with
steel and designed

to withstand corrosion
from moisture and flooding,

basically tailor made
to survive New Orleans

even without people.

The
Superdome was built

to outlast nature's
foul-tempered fury,

including winds up to
200 miles per hour.

The design of the
dome is very deliberate.

The curved shape is to allow
the wind to glide over it

and not slam into it.

It's held down by these
strong steel cables,

which are attached to a
circular tension ring.

The whole idea of this dome

is to give the wind
nothing to grab onto.

When hurricane
Katrina struck in 2005,

the building was pummeled
by wind and rain.

Now part of the exterior

of the building actually peeled
off, but the Superdome held,

protecting the over
25,000 people inside.

The fact that that dome held
is really saying something.

In 2024, Hurricane
Milton hit the Tampa area

and it ripped the dome right
off of Tropicana Field,

and that caused $60
million of damage.

Surrounded by
decay, choked by flood waters

and swallowed in silence, the
Superdome is still holding on,

not unharmed, just
unyielding for now.

In the Nile Valley,

50 years after people, there
are no storms on the horizon.

Here, the danger lurks
below the ground.

An earthquake is long overdue.

After decades of neglect,

the Aswan Dam can't take
any more water pressure.

Its systems are
full of sediment,

its foundation is full
of tiny little cracks.

It's like death by a
thousand paper cuts.

In Ethiopia, the Gerd
Dam is also holding,

but the reservoir
is completely full.

It holds enough water

to meet all of New York City's
water needs for 55 years.

Along the East
African Rift, the earth shifts.

If the quake breaks
down the Gerd dam,

a tidal wave will tear
through the desert

from Western Africa
to the Middle East,

sweeping away towns, temples,

and the history
of mankind itself.

50 years after people,

the East African Rift
rumbles beneath the Gerd Dam.

It holds, but Mother
Nature has other plans.

The trap shakes
loose a rock slide

that crashes into
the reservoir below.

When there's a rock slide,

you put a lot of solid
material inside that reservoir.

And that water has
to go somewhere.

It's like dropping
a bunch of ice cubes

into a very full drink.

The water's gonna splash up
and then splash over the sides.

When that happens to a dam,
it's called over topping,

and it's actually one of the
leading causes of dam flood.

The Gerd's designers build
two emergency spillways

to divert water around the
dam in case of over topping,

but one of them has
to be opened manually.

Dams simply aren't built to
withstand this kind of event.

Water over topping the dam
falls hundreds of feet,

slams into the earth,

basically hitting it
like a jackhammer,

undermining the foundations.

It will ultimately fail

and unleash a wall of
water that's 400 feet high,

covering almost an area
of 700 square miles.

The dam gives way,

releasing mankind's last
grip on the mighty Nile.

Water tears through the valley.

What's left of Sudan's capital
Khartoum is swallowed whole.

A wave this big would
be roughly the equivalent

of a 600 mile an hour wind.

That's faster and more powerful
than any wind on Earth.

For two days,
the flood rampages north,

leaving a 450 miles scar carved
through deserts and cities.

At the end of its path
sits the Aswan Dam,

cracked and weary.

Even if the Aswan Dam
was operating at its peak,

it could not possibly
handle that much water.

After those decades
of neglect and decay,

the dam would just
crumble instantaneously.

Now you've got the water

from Lake Nasser
added to the mix,

and it's barreling toward a
stretch of the Nile River Valley

that's been transformed
into a barren wasteland.

City of Luxor, gone,
Cairo, also gone.

It would just be
utter devastation

among the most iconic cities
and landmarks in Egypt.

Pretty much every one
of Egypt's major cities

and archeological sites are
just lined up along that river.

So the water would
just plow through those

like a freight train.

The Egyptian Museum
would be destroyed,

along with King Tut's Tomb
and the Valley of the Kings,

Queen Nefertiti's
tomb, finished,

all those beautiful
wall paintings.

The temples of Luxor, of Edfu,

along with the Colossi of
Memnon, everything is gone.

The list is endless, it is
so tragic to consider this.

Remarkably, there are
a few Egyptian icons

that will survive, the Great
Pyramids of Giza and the Sphinx

because they exist on
a limestone plateau

about 200 feet above the water.

So even though the
desert is inundated,

these most famous Egyptian
archeological icons

will end up surviving.

The waters recede

and nothing remains
but destruction.

In the silence that follows,

the Nile River
flows freely again.

Half a world away,
hurricane after hurricane

have carved New Orleans
down to its bones.

The streets are gone,
neighborhoods swallowed.

All that remains
is the Superdome.

Just because
it's still standing

doesn't mean it looks like
anything we're used to seeing.

I mean, the Superdome is a
shadow of its former self.

It is rundown and filthy,
it is covered by mold.

Even mushrooms are
growing inside.

That same humidity

that would help plants
grow all over the stadium

would then take its
toll on the metal,

which makes up the
bones of the building.

For a
century, the Superdome

has stood amidst the decay,

a defiant relic in a city
reclaimed by the swamp.

Now a Category 5 hurricane

is churning toward
it from the Gulf.

Category 5 storms pack
maximum sustained winds

of 157 miles per hour.

That is enough to create
massive storm surges

and completely inundate
the city of New Orleans.

There's not much
left at this point

to stop the wind or
hold back the waters.

Hurricane Patricia in
2015 was a Category 5 storm.

It had winds up to
215 miles per hour.

So think about the fact

that the dome was actually
only meant to withstand winds

of 200 miles per hour,
and yet it survived.

A hundred years after people,

a violent hurricane slams

what little is left
of New Orleans.

At its center stands
the Superdome,

cracked, hollow and alone.

Eventually, all the
brilliant engineering

that went into building
the Superdome would fail.

The steel cables holding
the dome would snap,

and then the wind
would start to lift it.

The roof is gonna be ripped
off the top of the building,

and once that happens,
the environment

is going to attack it from
the inside and the outside,

and that's gonna lead to
its ultimate destruction.

At last, Mother
Nature has clawed her way

through the Superdome's armor.

The unbreakable is broken,

and the city is almost
completely transformed.

Most of New Orleans
is gonna be underwater.

It's gonna be
reclaimed by the swamp.

In fact, it's possible
that the only sign

that there ever
was anything there

will be the top
of that Superdome.

Trees, vines, ivys will
reclaim all the highways,

all the city.

But the Superdome is enormous,

and because the
Superdome is enormous,

it'll be identifiable
through the jungle.

So when I imagine in
a life after people,

we may see a new version
of the Superdome,

one that actually might look
like a mechanical skeleton

showing much of the bones that
hold up that impressive dome,

but that white covering has
now peeled away over time,

exposing its beautiful
engineering

for the world to see.

Gone are the
jazz clubs and bars,

and even their ghosts now
lie beneath the water.

Once New Orleans
is fully submerged,

it's gonna get an entirely
new set of residents,

the kind with fins.

And one of the most
dangerous is bull sharks

from the Gulf of Mexico.

They're gonna swim
right up Bourbon Street,

and they're gonna become
the dominant predator.

Bull sharks can be
up to 11 feet long

and weigh up to 700 pounds,

and they prefer
low salinity areas,

just like the local
alligators do.

Alligators would've
been the dominant species

for some time with
plenty to eat,

all that nutria to feast on.

They'd just be cruising around,

having a time of it
with all that water.

I mean, the Superdome

would just be a giant
open-air swimming pool.

So here come the bull sharks

and they're really the only
thing that are gonna be able

to challenge these
alligators for a meal.

Instead of hosting
a Saints game,

you've got a matchup of the
gators versus the sharks.

What remains of
London is also crumbling.

Brick by brick, stone by stone,

it's sliding into the Thames.

After centuries, the
flooding of the Thames

would completely inundate
the foundations of the city.

The London Underground
would cave in.

Eventually, most of London
is just gonna collapse or sink.

It's gonna disappear.

If there are any archeologists
in the distant future,

they're gonna have to look
really hard to find evidence

that humans were ever there.

It's kind of like
we didn't understand

that dinosaurs were there
until the 17th century.

In Egypt, the Nile
feeds of landscape reborn.

What was once barren is now lush

and teaming with life again.

You get hippos back in
Egypt after being extinct,

and lions roaming up and
down the Nile Valley.

After a few hundred
years without people,

indigenous species
have returned,

not knowing that they're walking

upon what was one of
civilization's original cradles.

Human history

has been tied up to water.

All early human civilizations

started on the banks
of something,

Tigress and Euphrates,

the Nile, the Yellow River.

In many ways, the story of
humanity has been about water,

either protecting
ourselves from it

or learning to
harness its power.

But once we're gone, that
story is just washed away.