All language subtitles for Drain the Oceans Series 1 Part 1 Villains of the Underworld 720p

NARRATOR: Pirates,
gangsters, villains and
the worst of humanity.

Swallowed up by the sea.

But why?

Were they ripe for
the wrath of God?

Or are there deadly
natural forces at work?

What if, you could drain
the ocean to reveal the
secrets of the seafloor.

Now, powerful new
technology can do just that.

Digital photos and sonar
scans give us remarkable new

insights into a
world beneath the sea.

What apocalyptic disaster
wiped out the Pirate
city of Port Royal?

JON: It's a city
that was literally
swallowed by the sea.

And what are the
dangerous forces that
made Alcatraz, the Rock,

the most infamous
prison on earth.

JOHN: The conditions
surrounding this island
is what really made it an

escape-proof prison.

Drained dry, we reveal
the extreme geological
forces that led

to the demise of
so much wickedness.

NARRATOR: Deep beneath the
waves, is a reminder of the
earth's violent beginning.

Through the use of cutting
edge technology we can reveal
the secrets of the sea floor

in astonishing detail.

And expose the shaky ground
on which we all live.

In the 17th Century,
Port Royal, on the
south coast of Jamaica,

was an English
stronghold at the heart
of the Spanish empire.

Dominating what would become
Kingston Harbor from the
end of a long spit of land.

JON: If you've seen the
Pirates of the Caribbean movie,

the first town
you go to, where we meet
Jack Sparrow is Port Royal.

NARRATOR: Grown fat
on the profits of piracy and

slavery, Port Royal
was a city of almost 8,000;

the ultimate boom
town of a new world.

But it was also known as
the wickedest city on earth.

It certainly had more bars and
brothels than any other city

in the whole of
the English colonies.

-Well the port, indeed,
is very loose in itself; it is
now more ruled than our Sodom.

Filled with all
manner of debauchery.

NARRATOR: On June 7th, 1692,
disaster struck Port Royal.

A massive earthquake wiped
two thirds of the city off the
map; sending it to the bottom

of the sea.

Today, archaeologist,
Jon Henderson, an expert in
sunken cities, will use new

technology to discover just
how the disaster unfolded.

Port Royal sank so fast that
it took its secrets with it.

-This is a true sunken
city; but not only that,
it's a catastrophic site.

It went down so quickly that
it sealed a moment in time.

It's sometimes called the,
the Pompeii of the new world.

It's now underwater for
us to discover and that's
really rare in archaeology.

NARRATOR: Jon's mission is
to rediscover the sunken city
and recreate a precise digital

model of its ruins.

Data that explains how
the city tore apart, in
two minutes of terror.

It's a huge challenge,
but if it works, we can
virtually drain the ocean...

Strip away millions of gallons
of water and bring the sunken
city of Port Royal back into

the light of day.

Draining the sea beyond
Port Royal may explain why it
became a pirate powerhouse.

It's all down to its location.

Right at the entrance
of Kingston Harbor.

Pulling the plug on these
Caribbean waters, reveals one
of the largest natural harbors.

At ten miles long and
two miles wide, it's large
enough to shelter hundreds

of ships from the hurricane
whipped tropical seas.

Better still was the long
finger of land on which
Port Royal was built.

JON: One of the things we'll
see is the spit coming out
into this very deep harbor.

NARRATOR: Its steep
sides made it the perfect
location to dock ships.

JON: You had deep water on
either side, large ships could
come up and get very close to

the shore very quickly.

NARRATOR: This might seem
like an ideal spot to build a
port; but made of constantly

shifting sand, the spit would
be Port Royal's undoing.

JON: The main problem is,
there is no solid geology down
there for a very long way; so,

in an earthquake, when
that starts to shake,
you're in trouble.

-I very much doubt
that anybody in Port Royal

realized they were
sitting on a time bomb.

NARRATOR:
Jon Henderson is here with,

photographer Simon Brown to
photograph the sunken city.

With bad underwater
visibility Simon must get as
close as possible to the ruins

and take thousands of images.

After three days the many
photos have been compiled into
a 3D representation of what

lies on the seabed.

-Okay Simon, show
me what we've got then.

-It's not been easy,
but we've captured quite
a lot of building five.

NARRATOR: Building
five may once have been
a grand family home.

All that remains of
it now is one room.

Showing up in
unprecedented detail.

-I mean, this looks fantastic,
given the conditions
you were working in.

I mean, we can see we've got
the wall, you can actually
see the courtyard next to it.

You can see the fire-pit.

You can see the low walls.

This is great; we can
actually see the individual
bricks themselves.

For me, what's exciting is,
you can show that to someone
and they can instantly see

what's actually down there.

I didn't think you would
get results as good as this.

NARRATOR: Jon's
mission is delivering
spectacular results.

JON: We're beginning
to reconstruct, for the first
time in 300 years really,

what exactly's there.

NARRATOR: Now we can examine
the most famous pirate
city from every angle.

And shine light on the
extraordinary disaster, that
sent thousands of people and

hundreds of houses
to the depths.

But clues to its wickedness
still lie hidden in darkness.

Since the 1950s, three
archaeology expeditions have
sifted Port Royal's

underwater ruins, to uncover
its pirate past; and in the

1980s, a team discovered part of
the fabric of the city itself.

-During that ten years,
we excavated five buildings
pretty much completely.

It was the most
exciting excavation
I've ever conducted.

NARRATOR: Today,
we use science to map these
discoveries right across the

sunken city.

Thousands of relics
from a lost world.

All clues to Port Royal's
cataclysmic final day.

JON: Because this is a
catastrophic site, it's sealed
a whole range of goods that

were being used at a
particular moment in time.

NARRATOR: Each one is an
insight into the 17th Century
world of Caribbean pirates.

JON: So we can
get actual snapshots and
glimpses into daily life.

NARRATOR: From pewter
tableware, to Chinese
porcelain and signs of

personal wealth.

RONALD: The archaeological
record of Port Royal shows
how quite rich it was.

Because, usually, towns in
the new world are impoverished
copies of those in Europe;

whereas Port Royal
actually stacks up against
the capitals of Europe.

NARRATOR: But how did
Port Royal grow so rich?

The city was built from
the wealth of stolen
Spanish treasure.

In the 1650s, England
and Spain were at war.

Jamaica, an English
territory in the Caribbean,

lay surrounded on all
sides by the Spanish Main.

From Florida, through
Mexico and South America.

To gain the upper hand
over the Spanish, the English
enlisted the help of pirates.

JON: In 1657, the Lieutenant
Governor of Port Royal
actually invited the pirates

to come here and to act
as a kind of unofficial
defense force.

(screams)

RONALD: To the English
government, pirates who
attacked Spanish goods and

bring them to English
ports, could be an asset.

NARRATOR: Pirates
were licensed to raid the
Spanish; at sea or on land.

They became known as
buccaneers or privateers.

RONALD: What happens
in Port Royal really is
state sanctioned piracy.

NARRATOR: And in Port Royal,
at the heart of the Caribbean,

the buccaneers
were perfectly placed.

In striking distance of the
main shipping routes between
the new world and Europe.

RONALD: If the Spanish
are gonna try and get anything
home, they have to get it past

Port Royal; so it's rather
like a fox sitting in the
middle of a chicken coup full

of chickens.

NARRATOR: Port Royal
became the buccaneering
capital of the world.

By agreement, the
English crown took a
quarter of the plunder.

The rest was shared
amongst the pirates.

RONALD: Among the very first
buccaneering expeditions,
1659, the fleet brought back

the modern equivalent
of $75 million.

The Spanish wealth
that hits Port Royal in
periodic waves is colossal.

NARRATOR: Massive injections
of cash transformed
this fortified outpost

into a boomtown.

The drained city exposes as
many as 2,000 brick and timber
houses, crammed into

Port Royal streets.

Home to a growing
population of almost 8,000.

The crowded narrow streets
would become a death trap
when the earthquake struck.

JON: We're on a very enclosed,
very overcrowded peninsula;
we've got people living here

side by side, in two to
four story dwellings.

When the earthquake struck,
there was nowhere to run.

NARRATOR: From the
thousands of clues uncovered
from Port Royal's seabed,

there is one chilling
piece of evidence of
when the earthquake struck.

A 17th Century pocket
watch; its hands long
since rusted in the sea.

But closer analysis
of the find reveals
something intriguing.

JON: When it was x-rayed, it
was seen that the hands had
actually stopped at 11:43.

Now we know from historical
records that the earthquake
apparently hit just before

noon and this has been
taken by some to say that the
hands of that watched stopped

exactly when the
earthquake struck.

NARRATOR: But what
powerful natural forces set
the earthquake in motion?

To find the answer,
we're draining the ocean
not just from Port Royal,

but from the whole
of Jamaica, to uncover the
source of the earthquake.

Hidden in darkness, thousands
of feet beneath the water.

-As you drain the ocean
from around Jamaica, what you
can see is these giant furrows

in the seabed; they're fractal
lights running east/west
and they're faults, they're

earthquake fault lines.

NARRATOR: The faults form part
of the boundary between two
pieces of the earth's crust;

the North American
Plate and the Caribbean
Plate to the south.

Both constantly on the move.

-It's a place where the
gradual motions of the plate
either side get snagged,

stress builds up.

Essentially it's
an earthquake zone.

NARRATOR: And Port Royal sits
right in the middle of it.

-And in the case of 1692,
that stress that had built
up very, very gradually over

time, gets unleashed into
this, this huge earthquake.

NARRATOR: As the stress in
the earth's crust is released,
it propels a powerful seismic

wave into the surroundings.

June 7th, 1692.

-Doomsday at
Port Royal, begins
like any other day.

There are daily prayers
in the churches, business
begins at sunrise.

JON: People were just
going about their business.

NARRATOR: Travelling up to
five miles per second, the
seismic pulse was heading

straight for Port Royal.

JON: There's records
of one guy about to go
and have a sherry with the

Lieutenant Governor
that morning.

There was no indication
of what was about to come.

NARRATOR: Port Royal's
alleyways and buildings
were full of people.

Its wharfs and docks
crowded with merchant ships.

IAIN: I think the first
indication would have got is a
bang, a noise in the north, in

the mountains and a
kind of low rumbling.

JON: Well the records we
have suggest there was three
pulses from the earthquake.

IAIN: It was what's to come
that was the real killer.

-For the shake was
so violent, that it threw
people down on their knees.

NARRATOR: Chasms opened
up in the ground.

-We felt the ground shake
and saw the bricks begin
to rise in the floor.

-The ground heaved; it swelled
like a rolling, swelling sea.

NARRATOR: People ran
from their lives from
the falling masonry.

(screams).

But the city
offered no refuge.

IAIN: Port Royal was almost
the worst case scenario;
really tall buildings, made of

brick, with narrow streets.

So, if you're in
those streets, it's
almost impossible.

Your choice whether to stay
in a building or to get in
the street, is, it's a lottery.

NARRATOR: The earthquake
was just the beginning.

It alone doesn't
explain how Port Royal
plunged into the sea.

It would sink for an
entirely different reason.

Scientists call
it liquefaction.

For the
people of Port Royal,
it was hell on earth.

The sandy ground where they'd
built their houses turned
into a deadly quagmire.

IAIN: So what happens with
liquefaction is you've got
sand with lots of water in it

and as you shake it, it turns
into a slurry; it liquefies.

NARRATOR: Rarely captured on
camera, this footage reveals
the horrors of liquefaction at

work; in Niigata, Japan;
on June 16th 1964.

The energy from a massive
earthquake separated the
grains of sediment below the

city, allowing water
to rush to the surface;
earth turned to quicksand,

sucking the city down.

The unlucky people
of Port Royal wouldn't
have known how solid land

can become liquid death.

Minutes into the earthquake,
the second catastrophe
unfolded, as the ground

sheered open; water and
sand erupted from it.

The longer the ground
shook, the more liquid
the sand became.

Grand houses, churches,
taverns and even Port Royal's
forts sank like stones.

-Those houses, which back just
now, appeared the fairest and
loftiest in these parts, were

in a moment sunk down
into the earth and nothing
was to be seen of them.

NARRATOR: Some people
were trapped, half in
the sand and half out.

-The earth received up to
their necks and then closed
upon them, squeezing them to

death with their
heads above ground.

Many of which the dogs eat.

NARRATOR: Many perished
in this quicksand;

but there is one
incredible story of survival.

A French Merchant,
Lewis Galdy, found himself
sucked into the ground.

JON: Everyone thought
he was dead and then, in the
succeeding shock, he was spat

out into the sea and he
survived by swimming to the
nearest boat; after which he

became a really religious man.

NARRATOR: In all, two
thirds of Port Royal sank.

Taking with it 2,000 souls
and hundreds of buildings.

It's reported that the
city took only minutes to
disappear into the sea.

But the chaos the earthquake
had unleashed wasn't over.

lost city, we can reveal
extraordinary evidence that

the earthquake delivered one
last shock to Port Royal.

Embedded in the seafloor
are the skeletal
remains of a large ship.

She lies right
amongst the ruins of a
house on Lime Street.

-Well the clear question
is, why is there a ship
sitting on the floor of a

building in Port Royal?

NARRATOR: The strange
discovery was excavated in
the 1980s by Donny Hamilton.

Now Jon wants to find out
exactly what it tells us about
Port Royal's day of doom.

DONNY: What we see here is
a planned view of building
five and building four.

We came across a timber,
which turned out to
be the keel of a ship.

NARRATOR: But how could a
ship, presumably in harbor,
crash into a house in the

middle of town?

Would the identity
of the stricken ship
solve the mystery?

When Donny's team searched
the records, they revealed a
possible contender; an English

warship measuring
74 feet long.

Similar to this ship,
she was called HMS Swan.

-We knew from the
records that the Swan was in
the harbor at the time of the

earthquake and it fits the
basic dimensions of the ship
that we found in building four.

NARRATOR: It turned out that,
on the June 7th 1692, HMS
Swan was being serviced at

Port Royals wharfs.

All clues point
to one conclusion.

JON: You have a ship that
would have been sitting in the
harbor, a good 200 feet from

this building, has now
been deposited, launched
actually on top of it.

I mean, it's quite clearly
evidence of a tsunami.

NARRATOR: The tsunami
was the third cataclysm
to hit Port Royal.

One eyewitness account tells
of the sea retreating from
Kingston Harbor, before the

wave hit.

It was a wave similar to the
tsunamis that devastated Japan
in 2011 and Thailand in 2004.

(screams).

The tsunami would explain
what happened to HMS Swan.

Empty of ballast, HMS Swan was
like a cork on the mighty wave
that crashed over Port Royal.

She was hurled across
the drowned city;

washed down Queen Street

finally crashing
into a house on Lime Street.

Piercing its walls with
considerable force.

The archaeologists have
mapped the fate of Port Royal.

Port Royal was laid
to waste by an earthquake,
quicksand and tsunami waves.

The disaster left the city
cut off from the mainland.

All that remained was
a devastated island and
thousands of dead bodies.

-A multitude of whose corpses
floated a great many days
after; from one side of the

harbor to the other.

Caused such an intolerable
stench that the dead would
like to destroy the living.

NARRATOR: When news of the
disaster arrived in Europe,

it seemed that God had
finally delivered his judgement
on the wicked pirate city.

-When the news reaches
the home country, there's
quite a widespread feeling

that the wickedest city in
the English speaking world had
just got its just desserts.

-So it was seen as divine
retribution; it was seen as
just punishment for the loot

and terrible behavior that
took place in Port Royal.

-By this terrible judgement,
God will make them reform
their lives; for there was not

a more un-Godly people
on the face of the earth.

NARRATOR: Port Royal never
recovered its former glory.

The trading jewel of the
Caribbean was wiped off
the face of the earth.

JON: It's interesting
to think, if the earthquake
hadn't actually struck here,

that this place could have
developed somewhere like
Manhattan, or somewhere like

Hong Kong.

NARRATOR: But in the end,
it was Port Royal's lethal
location, on an active fault

zone and deadly quicksand,
that sealed its fate.

Half a world away, California,
lies on one of the most

infamous fault
zones in the world.

And right off shore, is an
island that might just be the
safest place, when the next

big one hits!

Alcatraz, The Rock.

Uncle Sam's Devil's island.

America's worst,
Al Capone, Machine Gun Kelly

and Whitey Bulger, all called
the "rock" home.

The island lies
within sight of shore, but
escape is almost impossible.

Prisoners who tried, were
met with some of the Bay's
most powerful forces.

The island of Alcatraz
sits alone in the middle
of San Francisco Bay...

Within this dramatic
landscape, Alcatraz and the
remnants of the renowned US

Federal prison are
just over a mile from
the heart of the city.

For 29 years,
it held some of the most
dangerous and notorious

criminals in history.

Officially,
no one successfully
escaped 'the rock'.

But why exactly was no inmate
able to break out of Alcatraz?

Today, the Island
is a museum run by the
National Park Service.

Over a million people
visit every year.

One man has watched it rise
to become one of America's
most visited attractions.

Ranger John Cantwell,
he's worked on the
Island for over 25 years.

JOHN: Where I'm standing is
on Broadway, this is the main
corridor in the cell house.

Alcatraz being a super max
penitentiary meant that you
had high security, one officer

for every three convicts.

They were constantly
being watched.

12 times a day they would
have counted every convict in
this penitentiary building.

NARRATOR: But it's true
strength as a prison can't
be explained just by the

thickness of its walls.

Or the vigilance
of its guards.

The waters around the
rock were also a deadly
barrier to escape.

Now science can explain
just how and why the
Bay was so dangerous.

NARRATOR: Draining the
San Francisco Bay reveals
Alcatraz as a pinnacle

of bedrock emerging
from the seafloor.

It's surrounded
by mountain peaks.

All of them are
ancient survivors from
an age of earthquakes.

Tom Parsons is a
geophysicist with the United
States Geological Survey.

He's studied this
area for decades.

TOM: So we're standing at the
Golden Gate and we're standing
on mountains that were formed

a hundred million years ago.

Now we're sandwiched right
between the San Andreas and
the parallel Hayward Fault

both of which are helping to
accommodate plate motion here
between the Pacific and

North American plates.

NARRATOR: San Francisco
sits right on the edge of
the North American Plate.

As the Pacific Plate grinds
north past it, stress builds
up along the major fault lines

in the area, the
Hayward Fault and most
notably the San Andreas.

TOM: This region is very
volatile it, it produces
large earthquakes.

We've seen them in 1906,
1868, both were devastating
earthquakes in San Francisco.

NARRATOR: The nightmarish
effects of the 1906
earthquake, 7.9 on the Richter

scale, are a reminder of how
the area's violent geology
threatens the existence of a

great city.

Over 100 million years
ago, the landscape here
was entirely different.

There was a third plate
between the two larger
ones called the Farallon.

TOM: The Farallon Plate used
to sit between the Pacific
and North American Plates.

It was shoved underneath
the North American plate
over all that time.

NARRATOR: The movement of
the Farallon Plate was the
catalyst that created

San Francisco Bay and Alcatraz
as it ground under
the North American Plate.

This process is
called subduction.

As the Farallon Plate
disappeared, fragments of
the Earth's crust were forced

upwards, creating a
valley and mountains.

TOM: Alcatraz was part of
the coast range belt that was
uplifted by the subduction of

the Farallon Plate.

NARRATOR: The Bay area
was then a long, forested
valley with a number of

Rocky Mountains one of these
mountains, was Alcatraz.

10,000 years ago as the last
ice-age came to an end the
area was deluged by billions

of gallons of melt water.

This created what we
call San Francisco Bay.

Alcatraz became an island.

This 1853 photograph shows the
tip of the drowned mountain
as a featureless rock in the

middle of the Bay.

Alcatraz may look
tranquil and isolated.

But it's surrounded by
powerful natural forces.

What earned the island its
deadly reputation, and what
may have happened during

attempted escapes?

Over three decades there
were 14 daring escape
attempts from the island.

The story of one of
these is legendary.

-Probably the
most famous escape attempt
would be the 1962 breakout.

NARRATOR: Frank Lee Morris,
and brothers Charles and John
Anglin devised an audacious

bid for freedom.

-The escape attempt
was incredibly ingenious.

It involved stealing an
immense amount of material,
dozens of rubber raincoats,

glue, electric motors
to turn into drills.

The guys even made
a periscope, they
made a flashlight.

NARRATOR: Now they had
to use these homemade tools
to breach the prison walls.

JOHN: We're in one of the
Anglin Brothers cells and they
were ingenious to actually

create a portal at the
back of their cell.

And they fashioned a drill
made out of a vacuum cleaner
engine, put a diamond bit on

the end of this thing and
then poked holes through the
concrete to loosen up the

concrete around the air vent.

Dummy heads were made out of
concrete material, human hair
glued onto the heads and the

faces painted on these heads
and at night with the lights
down it looked like they were

sleeping in their cells.

So in the cell house, the
lights go out at 9:30.

That's basically when
they make their break.

Once the lights are out the
heads are in place they go up
to the rooftop and they've got

from 9:30 to 6:30 the
next morning to make
it to the mainland.

50 rubber raincoats glued
together, Alcatraz escapees

Frank Lee Morris
and the Anglin brothers made a
makeshift raft and life vests.

It was their
lifeline to freedom.

They carried everything
to the roof and dragged it
down to the water's edge.

JOHN: So this is the
actual spot where they
entered the water.

Frank Lee Morris
and the Anglin Brothers
came down this hillside.

They dragged their raft.

Inflated it at the seawall
here, jumped in and
took off into the night.

They searched the waters
looking for these three men,
and the raft or the men were

never found.

NARRATOR: The official FBI
documents state the three
men and their raft were most

likely swept out to sea.

Their bodies were
never recovered.

But is this what
really happened?

Were they lost at sea?

Or could they have made
it to the mainland?

To understand the fate of the
three escapees on their raft,
scientists are studying the

geology of the bay itself.

Can the sea bed
offer an answer?

First, Patrick Barnard from
the United States Geological
Survey explores the underwater

landscape at the mouth
of San Francisco Bay.

He's hoping analysis of
the seabed will explain the
powerful currents that surge

around Alcatraz, making
escape attempts so dangerous.

-Today we're going
to be mapping from the Golden
Gate Bridge west towards the

outer coast.

NARRATOR: The investigation
begins under the most iconic
location in San Francisco Bay.

Draining the water
from under the Golden Gate
Bridge reveals a huge gorge.

It's far deeper than
the rest of the Bay.

Large enough to hide a
30 story building.

But what happens to the seabed
when the multi-beam vessel
heads west to the open ocean?

As the boat moves farther
from the bridge, the water
grows much shallower.

The sonar readings suggest
a dramatic transformation
in the seascape below.

PATRICK: The bottom
is changing, we're seeing
a lot more sediment

on the seafloor now.

NARRATOR: Draining the water
reveals an incredible sight.

PATRICK: We're starting to
see some very large sand waves
here that are emerging from

the depths of the
Golden Gate strait.

NARRATOR: These formations
on the seabed are huge.

PATRICK: So the
largest sand waves are about
200 meters long, 6 meters high,

the biggest ones 10 meters
high or about 3 stories.

NARRATOR: And they're
sitting just yards away
from the harbor entrance.

PATRICK: They look like
probably what the Sahara would
look like if you were walking

through it.

NARRATOR: These giant sand
waves are caused by the huge
tidal rush through

the Golden Gate Strait.

The fast-moving water
picks up sand and then
dumps it as it slows down.

PATRICK: You have all this
sand and gravel being carried
along and forced through this

narrow opening and then as
the opening widens further and
further all this material gets

deposited in these bed forms.

NARRATOR: The drained
landscape shows how the
geology of the seabed shapes

the powerful tidal currents
in San Francisco Bay.

First the deep gorge
that funnels the water
into a jet stream.

Moving west, beyond the Bridge
we follow the seabed as it
rises from over 300 feet deep

to just 130 feet.

The 'drain' shows how the
racing current dumps thousands
of tons of sand, creating

these giant sand waves
up to 30 feet high.

But what does this underwater
landscape have to do
with escaping from Alcatraz?

These racing tides are what
the inmates had to contend
with when fleeing the rock.

Is it possible that Frank
Morris and the Anglin brothers

got caught in
these wicked currents?

The records from the 1962
FBI investigation show the
tide charts on June 11th.

From 9 PM to 3 AM there was
a strong outgoing tide.

Which peaked at
exactly 11:46 PM.

So, when did the three
escapees hit the water
in their home-made raft?

MARTINI: From the moment
lights out happened, which
I think was 9:30, as soon as

they could've they would have
gotten out of their cells,
give it an hour, hour and a

half to have gotten everything
that they needed to through
that vent on the roof, across

the cell house, down the
other side, hit the water.

I think that they
started paddling as soon
as they got to the water.

Let's say 11:00.

NARRATOR: The three convicts
would have been in the water
at peak tidal flow during an

ebbing, outgoing tide.

What were their chances if
their flimsy raft made of
raincoats broke up, leaving

them to swim in the
powerful currents?

PATRICK: If you tried to
escape off the north end of
the island especially during

ebbing tide like they did in
1962 where the currents are
extremely strong and moving

straight out to sea.

It would have been very
difficult to swim out of that
current within an hour and a

half you could have
been at the open coast.

NARRATOR: So Morris and
the Anglin brothers had to
struggle with the fastest and

deadliest current
flow in the bay.

What happened to them
is one of the great
Alcatraz mysteries.

h
been wildly different rumors

about the men's fate.

Some claim to have seen the
three men on the mainland.

But this conflicts
with the official FBI
report into the escape.

Which states that their
objective was Angel Island!

A 2 mile paddle
north of Alcatraz.

-They did what nobody
else ever did, they got off
the island with a head start

and, and were
never seen again.

-The official Bureau of
Prisons report on these three
men in the raft is that the

raft took on water, the men
were in the San Francisco Bay,
they became hypothermic and

the currents took them out
to the Pacific.

NARRATOR: But
this was never proved.

And when the story
broke around the world, there
was excitement and intrigue.

MAN (over TV): It appears
to be the first successful
escape in the history of the

maximum-security prison.

NARRATOR: For weeks,
the FBI searched the bay,

their goal was to
find them, dead or alive.

MAN (over TV): The escape
triggered the greatest man

hunt in
San Francisco's history.

NARRATOR: Though they
never discovered any trace of
the bodies, the FBI did find

evidence of the escape.

MARTINI: They recovered two
of the inflatable life vests.

They recovered two of the
plywood paddles found floating
in different

places in the bay.

Another one of the life vests
was recovered outside the
Golden Gate at a beach north

of the Golden Gate.

There was no lack of
evidence that they escaped.

NARRATOR: Draining San
Francisco Bay reveals how
powerful currents on the

surface that swept men to
their deaths are shaped
by the contours below.

But for the three inmates, if
they did reach the open ocean
there was one more deadly

challenge because of its high
population of great white
sharks this area is known as

the Red Triangle.

PATRICK: In June of '62, it
would have also been during
up-welling season

like it is now.

So, you have lots of
nutrients in the water column.

Lots of fish and lots
of bigger predators, so it's
likely there could have been

more great whites in the
area than there are during
the rest of the year.

NARRATOR: So if they made it
this far out, dead or alive,
they may have become prey for

the great whites.

The bodies of the three
inmates were never found.

The infamous prison
closed its doors in 1963
with a perfect record.

Officially there were
no successful escapes from
Alcatraz, though many tried.

JOHN: The conditions
surrounding this island
is what really made it an

escape-proof prison.

MARTINI: The bay was
the most formidable
of the prison's walls.

You could say that the
bay has really created
Alcatraz' reputation.

NARRATOR: The 'perfect
prison' was the result
of extraordinary geology.

Deep gorges,
giant underwater sand dunes,

hard bedrock pillars
at the Golden Gate Strait,

powerful currents and
even great predators that roam
the waters outside the Bay.

All natural phenomena that
made the rock 'inescapable'.

But there is another mighty
natural force at work in San
Francisco Bay that dwarfs even

the power of the
ocean currents.

A drained Pacific Ocean
reveals the first clue.

Deep under the waters off
the coast of San Francisco
lies the infamous

San Andreas Fault.

The shifting tectonic
plates have caused major
earthquakes in the past.

The most deadly in 1906.

Over 3000 people
lost their lives.

But could an even deadlier
earthquake hit the area?

The so called 'big one'.

-So in our forecast
we actually consider an
earthquake that could start at

the southernmost part of the
San Andreas Fault, run all the
way along through the bay area

up north, involves the entire
San Andreas Fault zone.

That earthquake would
be on the scale of 8.2
to 8.4 in magnitude.

NARRATOR: The devastation
would be far greater
than the destruction caused

by the 1989 quake.

TOM: If we were to see
an earthquake of that scale
in San Francisco that would

cause, unfortunately a lot
of casualties, many buildings
would collapse, freeways and

infrastructure type
things would be in danger.

If it did happen I think
we would see significant
destruction in the city and

throughout the bay area
and throughout California.

NARRATOR: The
massive earthquake could
cause parts of the city to

topple into the sea.

Much of the downtown
core destroyed.

The Golden Gate Bridge pushed
to its engineering limits.

But when the fire and
smoke clears, 'one' place
will still be standing.

TOM: During a big earthquake
Alcatraz would be a safe haven
because it is built out of

very strong rock.

It's not going to collapse
under strong shaking
like soft soil would.

It's been there for 100
million years, it's hung in
there, so it's going to do

well under an earthquake.

MARTINI: If the geologists
are correct and when the San
Andreas lets go Alcatraz is

the safest place to be,
that is the ultimate irony.

The island
that so many men wanted to
get away from is the place

that's gonna offer the refuge.

NARRATOR: By draining Alcatraz
and exposing the secrets
hidden on the seabed, a

different picture of
the island emerges.

The explanations behind its
most legendary mysteries
involve more than just the

prison itself.

The geography of San
Francisco Bay, the waters, the
rocks, the wind and the fog, a

tightly woven net making
Alcatraz an inescapable place.

Unless the 'big one' hits.

Draining the waters around
Port Royal and Alcatraz
island reveal deep powerful

geological forces at work.

Captioned by
Cotter Captioning Services.