All language subtitles for Raging.Planet.S01E07.1080p.DSCP.WEB-DL.AAC2.0.H.264-WiLF

*

NARRATOR: It can cut a giant path of
destruction

hundreds of kilometres wide.

A hurricane is this nuclear-like
power

that can change your country.

MAN: It was just total destruction.

I felt like I was going to
get sucked right out of here.

Devastating winds,
relentless storm surges...

...and heavy rains
that trigger deadly floods.

No other force of nature

can equal the raw power
of a hurricane.

(THEME MUSIC)

Summer on the Texas coast.

As the hot sun sets over the warm
waters of the Gulf Of Mexico,

all seems peaceful.

But over the horizon,

a violent force of nature is
building

and it's coming this way.

WOMAN: For the third straight day,
an unstoppable Hurricane Ike

barrelled through the Caribbean.

A storm so powerful,

it destroyed or damaged 85% of the
buildings on the Turks and Caicos.

Spanning 800km,

Hurricane Ike is a monster.

WOMAN: Hurricane Ike is causing
severe damage in Cuba

and is headed towards the crowded
capital of Havana.

The mammoth hurricane pounded the
island of Cuba

with 190km/h winds,

then it veered north towards Texas.

Officials alone the Texas coast are
urging residents

to stock up on supplies and prepare
to evacuate.

On September the 13th 2008,

Ike smashed into the Texas coast.

Within just four hours,

the hurricane had turned great
stretched of lush, green coastline

into a wasteland.

10,000 houses destroyed.

Four million people left without
power.

The storm ploughed 80km inland and
struck the city of Houston.

Skyscrapers lost windows,

50% of the city's apartment buildings
were damaged.

Although the winds themselves were
destructive,

they brought something with them that
was far more devastating.

As the storm pushed across the Gulf
Of Mexico,

it drove a huge wall of sea water
towards the shoreline.

As it hit the coast,

the water forced its way up and over
the land

in a phenomenon called a storm surge.

I realised we were in trouble when I
looked out the kitchen window

and the whole gulf was moving up

just as fast as my hand is moving
in.

It came up really rapidly

and before you knew it, it was chest
deep.

It was, to me, the surge was rising,
rising, rising

and it bubbled up like you were
bubbling in a pot.

The water bubbled up from every
hole in the ground.

One resident who got trapped in the
rising storm surge was Mike Anderson.

At 11 o'clock that night, the
water had come up 14ft

and then a foot in the house, so
you know it was 15ft deep.

Mike had taken shelter in a
neighbour's raised beach house.

But as the full fury of Ike struck,

the combination of storm surge and
high winds

began to rip the building apart.

I just started praying, praying as
hard as I could.

I was asking God to help me, that I
think this is it, you know.

First, the windows started
shattering in.

Then the water come in.

Next thing you know, I'm panicking.

I went into each room, 'What am I
gonna do?' looking at the windows.

I grabbed a couch, threw it in the
window

to keep the wind and water out.
Another one blew in.

And then, next thing you know, the
door come in.

It just came in like a shot.

Once the hurricane broke in,
nothing could stop it.

The next thing you know, you hear
this crackling.

You can't describe it. It's
something you hear in the movies.

I didn't even think, I didn't
hesitate, I just dove out.

As Mike jumped into the water,

the whole beach house collapsed
behind him.

Mike was now at the mercy of the
raging surge,

fighting for his life.

The force of the surge is so much,
there's nothing you can do.

There was three times where I went
under

and I didn't think I was going to
come back up.

I just kept dog paddling just as
much as I could.

I was telling God to help me,

but I kept screaming 'No!' as loud
as I could.

'No! No! I'm not gonna die!'

In the heart of the storm, Mike
somehow kept himself afloat.

*

*

By the time Hurricane Ike finally
eased up,

the storm surge had carried Mike
Anderson 12 miles down the coast.

All told, the hurricane claimed the
lives of 103 people.

Mike's survival was a miracle.

A storm surge is especially
destructive

because water weighs 800 times more
than air.

When it strikes, it packs a heavy
punch.

To find out exactly how storm surges
pull towns apart,

meteorologist Ivor van Heerden has
come to Texas.

He's here to do a forensic analysis

of the ruins Hurricane Ike left
behind.

The debris field that I'm standing
in

is very, very typical of a
hurricane.

Especially if there was a surge
event,

you get an accumulation of
everything,

from boats to houses to businesses.

It's a real jumble - imagine a
washing machine

and you threw everything in there
and then spread it out.

This is very, very typical.

For 64km, the coast is littered with
the contents of people's lives.

Storm surges along this part of the
Texas coast

are especially destructive.

From the air, it's easy to see why.

The landscape is completely flat.

Even a small rise in sea level will
trigger massive floods.

If we'd been here during hurricane,
we wouldn't have seen any land.

This would have been just a very
seething mass of water

moving across the island from the
Gulf Of Mexico

into the bay.

When the surge hit,

it tore buildings right off their
foundations.

So now you have a situation with
16ft of water

moving through the houses and then
the pounding of these waves,

9ft high, every six or seven
seconds.

And then on top of that,

there would have been debris
everywhere,

just debris just moving around.

And the debris itself becomes a
battering ram

such that it destroys buildings and
structures in its wake.

It was this churning mix of
fast-moving water,

heavy debris and wind that destroyed
towns all along this coast.

By the time it was over,

Hurricane Ike had caused $31.5
billion worth of damage,

making it the third most expensive
hurricane in US history.

Storms like these may be deadly, but
they don't start that way.

So how does a gentle breeze become a
killer?

Every year, an average of 45
hurricanes

will form around the globe.

But depending on where in the world
they form,

these giant storms are known by
different names.

Over the Western Pacific, they're
called typhoons.

Typhoons often make landfall in Asian
countries,

like China and Japan, pounding
exposed coastlines.

Storms that form further west over
the Indian Ocean

are known as cyclones.

It's the storms that form over the
Atlantic

and make landfall in North America
that are called hurricanes.

The energy unleashed in a single one
of these

can be enough to power the United
States for a whole year.

The force of these storms is rated
using the Saffir-Simpson Scale.

It ranges from a category one up to a
giant category five.

Meteorologist Ivor van Heerden uses a
wind tunnel

to demonstrate the different wind
categories.

First a category one - 119km/h to
153km/h.

I can feel it blowing past my ears.

It feels like it's almost trying to
suck the air out of my ears.

Very, very powerful wind

and this is only a category one
hurricane.

A category two - 154km/h to 177km/h.

We're now at 95mph wind.

There's absolutely no way that you
could walk in this wind.

It really gives you a feel

for how powerful these hurricanes
are.

A category three.

Next up, a category four.

The winds reach between 210km/h to
249km/h.

But the most powerful hurricanes are
category fives.

In excess of 250km/h.

If you imagine the energy that's in
one atomic bomb,

a major hurricane such as Hurricane
Katrina, for example,

as it crossed the Gulf Of Mexico,

expended the energy of over 150,000
atomic bombs.

But how does nature generate such
massive forces?

The answer lies here in the Cape
Verde Islands,

an isolated island chain in the heart
of the Atlantic

nearly 500km off the coast of Africa.

Every year, the warm, humid
atmosphere above these islands

sets the stage for one of nature's
greatest acts of creation.

It's in these skies

that almost all hurricanes are born.

A few hundred miles over the
horizon

lies Africa and the Sahara Desert,

the generator of very hot, dry
winds.

Those sort of winds then meet the
moist air of the North Atlantic,

giving us the two ingredients for
the birth of hurricanes.

About once every three days, a
pocket of super heated Saharan air

breaks away from Africa and drifts
over the Atlantic.

These warm air pockets are called
tropical waves.

This hot air generates giant
convection currents

that drive moisture from the surface
of the ocean

high into the atmosphere.

As this moisture-laden air cools,

it begins to condense into bands of
cloud.

This is the beginning of a hurricane.

We're witnessing the passage of a
tropical wave

that started off the coast of
Africa, migrating past us,

on its way to the Gulf Of Mexico.

And you're seeing here this very
moisture-laden air rising.

This is very typical of what happens

in the convective cells inside these
tropical waves.

If the ocean is warm enough,

a tropical wave can begin to feed off
the heat rising from the sea.

This then marches across the North
Atlantic

gaining energy from the very, very
warm ocean waters

and, ultimately, striking the United
States.

When the amount of moisture forced
into the atmosphere

reaches a critical mass,

the spin of the Earth starts to
affect the gathering clouds.

Called the Coriolis effect, this
causes the clouds

to merge and create the unmistakable
rotating structure of a hurricane.

Once formed, nothing can stop these
giant storms.

And when they hit land, their effects
can be devastating.

*

*

When most people think of a
hurricane,

they think of one thing - wind.

But wind speeds in different parts

of a hurricane's rotating structure
vary

from almost tranquil to terrifying.

In the centre of the storm is the
eye.

Here everything is eerily calm.

But just outside the eye, it is
different.

This is the eye wall,

the most intense part of any
hurricane.

Winds here reach up to 320km/h.

It's the violent winds in this part
of a hurricane

that can rip even sturdy structures
apart in seconds.

In 2004, the sleepy coastal town of
Punta Gorda, Florida

was directly in the path of what was
forecast

to be a moderate category two storm -

Hurricane Charley.

Veteran storm chaser Jim Edds
travelled to Punta Gorda

to film Hurricane Charley as it made
landfall.

But as Charley approached, Jim was
in for a nasty surprise.

Hurricane Charley was a small
hurricane.

You know, the eye wasn't very big.
It was about 5 miles across.

One thing about small hurricanes is
they can intensify very quickly.

They spin up fast and they can also
spin down very fast.

Unfortunately, this one spun up real
fast.

Can you hear it? Yeah.
It's coming.

Just 32km offshore, Charley suddenly
intensified

from a category two to a category
four storm.

I was scared, but I'd never been in
a category four,

so I didn't really know what was
coming.

I had an idea it was gonna be windy,

but you can't imagine a category
four.

That's a strong hurricane. You
have to see it to believe it.

While Jim Edds was filming the
growing power of the storm,

on the other side of town,

resident Brenda Ryan was about to
find out

just how quickly a category four
hurricane

can rip a house apart.

I looked out my window and my shed
just went flying right by me.

And that's when we lost power and
things went downhill from there.

When the window broke here in the
front, the big window,

I remember all of the pictures
blowing around.

The wind, it was like a little
cyclone inside that living room.

Nearby, Jim was still out in the
open,

filming the violent winds now
blasting through the town.

Debris was howling, it was blowing,
stuff was being ripped up.

Across the street, we had a sign
that blew out.

And I was pretty scared,

cos it was just getting stronger and
stronger.

With the eye wall fast approaching,

the hurricane entered its most
destructive phase.

It sounded like little bombs going
off.

Those were the concrete tiles that
were pounding into the house.

Brenda sheltered from the storm in
her bathroom.

The ceiling's moving up and down a
couple of three inches.

The nails were popped out and just
hanging.

The tiles fell off the bottom part
of the walls

where the walls were moving in and
out.

I think reality had come to me

that I may not walk out of that
bathroom.

As the eye wall hit Punta Gorda,
winds exceeded 240km/h.

MAN: Here it comes!

Oh, my God! Where...?

But things were about to get even
worse.

Winds inside a hurricane are
circular,

so as Charley crossed the town, the
wind direction began to change.

The safe spot Jim Edds had been
filming from

was rapidly becoming a death trap.

Initial the wind's coming over the
building,

I felt pretty safe. That's out of
the north-east.

As the hurricane got closer,

the wind shifted, came down Highway
41.

The problem with that is debris
was really close to me.

I had to back up all the way to this
corner.

I was essentially trapped here.

It was howling, debris was just 6ft
away from me.

I felt like I was going to get
sucked right out of here,

Debris was hitting things, it was
busting up.

I saw things cartwheeling down the
road

and they'd hit poles and then they'd
shatter

and I'm thinking, 'Wow, that's
pretty strong.'

You look at a roof blowing down the
street,

a roof blowing off a building -

well, sure it could pick me up and
send me flying down the street too.

In just one hour, the storm had
dismantled Punta Gorda,

leaving the town in ruins.

It was just a debris grinder.

Everything got ripped up.

It was incredible to see this town
after that hurricane.

It just looked like a bomb had gone
off. Nothing looked normal.

There was nothing standing.

I mean, it just looked like a war
zone through here.

Hurricane Charley is a reminder

of just how destructive winds inside
these storms can be.

But winds aren't the most lethal part
of a hurricane.

That status is reserved for the storm
surge.

The reality is nine out of ten
hurricane deaths are due to drowning.

As a hurricane moves across the
ocean,

powerful winds blast the surface of
the sea.

This creates a huge bulge of water
that's pushed ahead of the storm.

When this water reaches land,

it's forced up and over the
shoreline.

This is a storm surge.

In the last decade, the US has been
hit

by 60 different hurricane storm
surges.

But one was so powerful it dwarfed
all the others.

August 2005.

Hurricane Katrina arrived on the Gulf
Coast...

...bringing with it 225km/h winds and
a storm surge 6m high.

New Orleans was hit hard.

Almost 2,000 people lost their lives.

This incredible damage happened even
though the city

was only brushed by the outer bands
of the hurricane.

Katrina actually made landfall 120km
away in another state.

The town that took the full brunt of
the storm was Gulfport, Mississippi.

Hurricane Katrina was so violent
that it actually changed the...

Storm chasers Jim Reed and Mike
Theiss were there when it happened.

Hurricane Katrina was by far

the highest storm surge I had ever
witnessed

and probably the most I will see in
my lifetime.

This storm surge was so powerful and
destructive

that it actually obliterated the
entire coastline

of one of America's states.

Mike and Jim had picked a sturdy
concrete hotel

right on the beach to document the
hurricane as it made landfall.

Their first indication of Katrina's
true power

came as they watched the highway in
front of the hotel

being swamped by the surge.

A storm surge does not look like a
tsunami wave in any way.

Sometimes it gets perceived as that,

but it's more of a gradual rise in
the water

and it just keeps coming and coming
and coming.

Water's coming in the room through
the air-conditioning vent.

What contributes to the deadliness

and destructiveness of the storm
surge

is what does it hit initially?

What comes apart?

And, in essence, that debris becomes
part of

an aquatic bulldozer blade pushing
forward.

Oh, here it is. It's getting ready
to break, guys.

Huge chunks of debris acted as a
battering ram,

forcing their way into the lobby.

(MAN YELLS INDISTINCTLY)

We're currently on the second floor.

The storm is already coming up the
stairs down here.

The first floor of the hotel -

the entire first floor is under
water.

The storm surge was now at its peak,
submerging the whole floor

and forcing its way up onto the next.

Trapped upstairs, Jim and Mike could
only watch

as the surge destroyed the hotel
directly under their feet.

What we saw was just breathtaking.

Refrigerators, televisions floating,

just people's homes, pieces of roof.

It was just total destruction at
that point.

The roof collapsed on this building
below me.

You can see the roof broke off.

The water was rushing through the
ground floor

and you would see this wave
actually going through the hotel

and coming out the back.

The surge hammered the hotel for two
hours

before it finally retreated back to
the ocean.

Holy cow!

This is the lobby.

This was the lobby.

All told, it's estimated that Katrina

caused more than $100 billion worth
of damage.

When Jim and I finally got out of
the hotel

and walked down the beach,

we couldn't believe the destruction
we were witnessing

and the scale of the impact of the
entire coastline

just completely decimated.

The storm surge brought so much water
on shore

that the salt left behind poisoned
two million hectares

of Mississippi forest.

It was the biggest forestry disaster
in US history.

Even today, empty plots still scar

this once prosperous coastline,

a reminder that while hurricanes do
their damage in a few hours,

their effects are felt for years.

A hurricane is a cluster of storms
rotating around a centre

and in this centre is this
nuclear-like power

that can change a country.

It's that powerful.

Hurricanes hit coastlines especially
hard.

But being further inland doesn't
guarantee safety.

Not when these storms bring the
additional danger

of mudslides and torrential flooding.

*

*

A town under water.

Flooding like this is the telltale
sign of a hurricane.

As a storm gathers strength over the
ocean,

it sucks enormous amounts of moisture
into its giant clouds.

But when it hits land,

the storm collapses, dumping a huge
amount of moisture

in the form of torrential rain.

Just one of these storms can drop
1.5m of rain in a single day.

When that much water falls on
mountainous terrain,

it can trigger violent flash floods
and mudslides.

There's one country that's more
vulnerable

to these floods than anywhere else on
Earth.

Taiwan.

A mountainous island located on the
edge of the world's greatest ocean,

the Pacific.

It might seem peaceful,

but because of its unique location,

Taiwan is subject to violent weather.

Every summer, the Pacific generates
massive hurricane-type storms.

But here they're known as typhoons.

These enormous storms sweep directly
over the island

and as they collide with the steep
mountains,

there are dramatic results.

Storm chasers Geoff Mackley and
James Reynolds

come to Taiwan every year to witness
these events.

Taiwan is like no other place on
Earth

because you've got extremely big
mountains

very close to the sea coast.

Within only a couple of miles,

the mountains rise up to 12,000ft
and that's a recipe for chaos.

The mountains in the centre act as a
brick wall, so to speak.

So when a typhoon sweeps ashore,

it's hitting this massive physical
barrier

which just drains all the energy out
of the storm.

In their death throes, they just
dump

unimaginable quantities of rain.

In 2007, a category three storm
called Typhoon Sepat

smashed into Taiwan.

When the storm drove up against the
island,

it collapsed, unleashing an
incredible deluge of rain.

The weather was furious at that
point.

The rain was sheeting down, you
could hardly see

more than 100ft. It was near
white-out conditions.

In just 24 hours,

the typhoon had poured 73cm of rain
onto the island.

By sunrise, the floods had reached
gargantuan proportions.

It wasn't really until we hit the
first bridge

over a major river that I realised
that actually the storm's landfall

was only the first chapter of this
story.

We could see this river, which must
have been

at least half a mile wide

was just bank to bank, solid, raging
flood waters.

All across Taiwan,

rivers overflowed and bridges were
swept away.

But the most violent flooding
happened in the island's

deep mountain gorges,
where the narrow canyons

funnelled the water into torrents.

That's certainly the biggest and
most awesome flash flood

that I've ever seen.

You've got millions of tons of water
passing

the point you're standing every few
minutes.

The more volume of water you have,
the faster it moves

and, you know, it was probably doing
30mph, 40mph, and that's fast.

Fast-flowing water like this

can pick up almost any object in its
path.

The river was raging. In places, it
was overflowing

and the ground was shaking

as huge boulders were being washed
down the river.

That was one of the most unnerving
aspects.

Once these floods start, there's no
way to stop them.

Thankfully, there were no towns in
the steep gorges

that channelled the flood water from
the mountains to the sea.

But when a typhoon triggered a flash
flood

down one of Taiwan's populated
valleys,

it led to disaster.

In September 2008,

the island was hit
by Typhoon Sinlaku.

(HORN BLASTS)

The storm triggered flash floods in
the mountains.

Raging down Taiwan's gorges,

the floods smashed everything in
their path.

Hardest hit was the small, hillside
village of Lushan.

Here the flood waters poured down the
town's main street.

Storm chasers Geoff Mackley and James
Reynolds were there.

Holy hell.

Everything's inundated. Look at all
the buildings up there,

houses up to the roofs in water.

Two, three days of continuous
cyclone-related rainfall

in this area is just a recipe for
disaster.

You can see here, it's just a
perfect example

of what can happen when things
really go wrong.

The surging water was so powerful

even sturdy five-storey hotels fell
like dominoes.

Every three cubic feet of water
weighs a ton,

so that's thousands of tonnes of
power

pushing on anything in its way.

A solid concrete parking complex
here

has just been completely washed away
as if it was made of matchsticks.

This flood was a killer, claiming
eight lives in this region alone.

Across the island of Taiwan, four
other people died that day.

Hurricanes, typhoons, cyclones.

These deadly storms are a global
problem.

Around the world, they kill hundreds
of people every year.

But even for survivors,

life after the storm is never the
same again.

Back in the United States,

three months after Hurricane Ike
ripped apart the coast of Texas...

...Mike Anderson and his wife, Dawn,

went back to see what was left of
their neighbourhood.

There was a house on this empty lot
here.

Her sons came and cleared that out.
It was just totally demolished.

This house and that sort of
blue-coloured house right there,

those weren't there before the
storm.

They floated in from either an
adjacent neighbourhood

or back towards the beach.

Mike and Dawn's house was one of the
few still standing,

but the hurricane had wrecked it.

You know, I didn't notice the second
time we came in here,

but this wall is moved.

This is totally off the slab right
here.

And you can see this was our wall,
you know,

and it's just... coming down.

That was the dining room.

Yeah, this was our dining room right
here

and this was our living room.

This used to be where we -
Christmases and Thanksgivings

and birthdays and birthday parties
and friends and family.

For countless families up and down
the coast,

it's the emotional aftermath that's
so hard to come to terms with.

It just a matter of hours, your
whole life's gone.

Everything you've worked years and
years for is a pile of junk.

It's something that you have to
respect.

You know, you just can't take it
lightly.

You hear about Katrina, you know,
those poor people.

But then when you go through it,
then you understand

that what they went through is so
devastating.

There's no way that it hasn't

completely changed how you look at
things.

When hurricanes strike,

they tear apart entire countries.

Get out of the tree!

Get out of there!

They leave a trail of death and mass
destruction

and wherever these monsters make
landfall,

they unleash the full fury
of Mother Nature.

itfc subtitles

*