Life After People: Lethal Toxins Take Over the World (S2, E2) | Full Episode | History

what would happen if every human being  on earth disappeared this isn't the story   of how we might vanish it is the story of  what happens to the world we leave behind in this episode of life after people man harness  dangerous substances to dominate the world   but he was playing with fire   a common chemical turns into a cloud of death  a spontaneous explosion rocks new york city   and power plants find a secret way to  go nuclear welcome to earth population zero man may be gone but the world will  now face an assault from the toxic   chemicals and deadly substances he left behind one day after people nuclear reactors across the world  begin shutting down into safe mode   when you lose power from outside the reactor the  safety systems are designed so it tries to shut   down the core a mechanical system automatically  engages to halt the nuclear reactions   the uranium used for fuel in these  plants is naturally radioactive meaning it releases energetic  particles as it decays   and there's more uranium at a nuclear  plant than just what's in the reactors every 18 months uranium in the core  stops producing enough energy to   sustain a nuclear reaction and has to be replaced at that point the fuel is dangerously hot  when they pull the fuel from the reactor core   that's when it becomes radioactive waste it's  thousands of times hotter than when you put   it into the car thermally and radioactively  so you then take that fuel and you put it in   the fuel pools to keep it cool freshly removed  fuel rods can reach a scalding 2000 degrees   and it takes 40 feet of water maintained below  120 degrees to keep them from overheating the amount of waste in the pool depends on how  long the reactor is operated the reactors here   in the u.s have been operating between 30 to 40  years at this point so you have five to ten times   the amount of radiation in the spent fuel pool  that you actually have in the core of the reactor the cooling pool may look harmless but  danger is simmering just beneath the surface another threat looms at rail yards like these   where train cars wait for  engines that will never arrive in the time of humans 31 million  cars carried 2 million tons of cargo   and 40 000 of these cars carry a common chemical  that can be lethal if accidentally unleashed now without people it's waiting  silently for the time to strike five days after people one of man's toxic leftovers is  already ravaging the planet raw sewage millions of gallons are flowing  into the rivers around manhattan as electricity shuts off 93 pump stations  around the city are failing one by one   sewage is backing up and flooding the six  thousand miles of piping beneath new york this happened before during  the northeast blackout of 2003 when the power went out the sewage system  could not pump all of the water through   the sewage treatment plant as a result  water went right out into the hudson   500 million gallons of raw sewage overwhelmed  pipes and spilled out into new york's waterways   left unchecked sewage produces methane gas a  nasty by-product of decaying organic matter and it's now finding its way into  the city's rail and subway tunnels all of the tunnels are interconnected   they're interconnected with each other and they're  interconnected with the sewer lines of the city lighter than air methane naturally seeks the  highest tunnels as it creeps below street level   the ultimate destination for much of the methane  gas is the area around grand central terminal   because it sits on one of the highest natural  points in manhattan because grand central   terminal is such a high point after people  one of the dangers is collection of gas   especially during the spring when there's a lot  of water a lot of bacterial growth so you will   get small amounts of gas collecting naturally  in the platform area and in the terminal itself   ventilation intakes inside the terminal would  normally clear the air of dangerous fumes   but without power those aren't working anymore  and wherever flammable methane flows unchecked   the risk of an explosion follows you should  really think of the city as a machine not as a pile of static structures and that  machine is in mortal danger once the people leave one week after people the stench from garbage left behind by people   is a sure sign of a delicious  meal for this nocturnal rodent raccoons are really attracted  to things that smell really bad   something that would repel people  as an attractant for raccoons the average raccoon weighs about 15 pounds  but those with easy access to human scraps   can balloon to over 60 pounds the raccoon is the  ultimate omnivore basically they'll eat anything   without people raccoons are continuing to exploit   the structures that resemble  their natural habitats the most our chimneys function a lot like hollow trees   that's actually one of the  favorite refuges for raccoons   and so they can easily climb up the outside of  a chimney and then come down through the bottom raccoons seek interiors because they  offer protection from weather and predators nothing beats the allure of free food  that sense of smell is going to draw them into the   kitchen in any other place where they have garbage  in the house for a raccoon this is heaven on earth   a very highly developed sense of touch means that  their long fingers and toes are a raccoon's point   of first contact their brain is connected to  their feet basically they forage with their   feet or their hands instead of with their nose and  with their eyesight like a lot of other carnivores   they can open up cabinets they can open up your  refrigerator they devastate the kitchen they   devastate it for these masked little bandits  the shoplifting has never been easier they'll   literally simply walk from their din site  to that refuse site and eat get a little   bit to drink and simply walk right back and  go back to sleep and that's pretty much it   actually they become couch potatoes very quickly ten days after people discarded fuel rods are  primed for a toxic reawakening in the time of humans spent fuel rods were kept below water for up to 10   years before they were cool  enough to be removed safely but now with power lost to the cooling pools heat  from the rods is causing the water to boil away   once the water level dips  below the tops of the rods   and their temperature hits 700 degrees  the entire pool becomes a bonfire and that   would help propel all the radiation 10 20 cores  worth that are sitting in their spin fuel pools   out into the environment to whichever way the wind  blew those are the areas you'd be contaminating   an invisible killer has been unleashed  and nothing is safe for miles in each direction one month after people niagara falls the 170  plus foot drops on the american and canadian   side of the niagara river continue to put  on their spectacular show although once a   destination for honeymooners and family outings  niagara falls also conceals a toxic secret one month after people 1.5 million gallons  of water continue to gush over niagara falls   each second but this awesome natural  wonder is hiding a very unnatural past one of the surprising things about the niagara  region is that it was always very industrialized   one of the signs that you see  is a large number of landfills perhaps the most lethal is the one at love  canal where twenty thousand tons of toxic waste   lie buried a hazardous waste landfill is  lined usually with plastic or with cement   the fluids that leak out are constantly monitored  and leaks are adjusted and corrected and repaired   in a life after people none of  that is going to be happening   but it's not the small leaks of  toxins that will cause the most damage   it's the massive surges of water that  are about to wreak havoc on niagara falls in the time of humans the region attracted heavy   industry because of access to  inexpensive hydroelectric power one month after people a pair of plants seven  miles from the falls are still generating   electricity hydroelectric plants don't require  humans to load the fuel into the plant the way   say a coal plant requires humans to load the colon  so the water would continue to flow into the plant   and would continue to spin the turbines  even without people there running in enormous intake tunnels continue  to draw water into the turbines   and divert it away from the  walls but that's about to change in a life after people there won't be people  using electricity so there won't be a need   for electricity the substations that accept the  electricity coming from the niagara power plants   will then speak back to the power plant and  say don't send me any more power and niagara   would automatically begin to shut down as the  plants turn off the intake tunnels close the   tunnels will no longer be pulling water out of the  river and that will be a very interesting moment the river rises 13 feet almost instantly  and doubles the flow of water over the falls downstream the maid of the miss docks the launch   point for up-close views of the falls  for over 150 years gets blasted away two months after people the free ride for urban  raccoons is coming to an end   trash cans aren't providing the  bounty they've grown used to but access to water is keeping some  raccoons close to abandoned homes domestic gardens also provide a lifeline   they do take advantage of the the fruits quite a  bit so that would continue for some period in time   but that probably isn't not enough  to sustain them over the long haul raccoons moved into cities in the early 1900s  as they discovered the good life near people   in peak conditions one square mile of  urban space can support over 200 raccoons   but without the bounty supplied by people fewer  than one in ten urban raccoons will survive   even a year so they're gonna have to start  looking and actually working for their food   which means chasing their prey they're going  to eat clams crayfish that type of thing so   they will go back to eating the things that  they're really supposed to be eating anyway it's no longer a picnic but after a  massive die off the species will survive one year after people at nuclear plants  where overheated fuel rods burst into flames   miles wide dead zones leave a scar a radiated ring of death already  happened once in the time of people it was caused by a malfunctioning  nuclear reactor at chernobyl   in the former soviet union radiation decimated  pine forests within a two mile radius   this is the damage wrought by the failure of  just one power plant in a life after people   there are hundreds of sites where spent fuel  rods will unleash their deadly radiation   what you're looking at are 440 commercial  reactor sites plus the military sites   that would become basically irradiated dead zones five years after people an abandoned freighter  still plies the waters of the great lakes   in the time of humans   vessels of all types shuttled 162 million tons  of cargo through the region each year there are   a lot of ships on the great lakes these are very  large tankers they are up to a thousand feet long and all vessels still floating on the great lakes  are headed in the same direction niagara falls the falls are almost like a  bathtub drain they're pulling   all of the water out of the great lakes through  and into lake ontario and ultimately out to sea   so everything that's in the great  lakes is moving towards niagara falls however the international railway bridge  near the entrance to the niagara river   bars the way no ship taller  than 22 feet can pass underneath the bridge built in 1873 is holding  for now but more ships are on the way a decade into a life after people grand central terminal once visited daily by  half a million people now is just a gathering   place for owls methane gas has been building  up in the rail tunnels below but it's not grand   central that's in the most danger that's because  the tracks don't actually run under the building   the tracks are under the met life building  but they're beside grand central terminal   people don't realize the original railroad  terminology a terminal is where tracks end now in the tunnels below the metlife building next  door other toxic fumes are mixing with the methane   there are a lot of volatile materials there's a  fair amount of oil and residue on the tracks below   these areas are very well maintained  right now but after people   you're going to see a fair amount  of kerosene fumes gasoline fumes   alcohol fumes all the cleaning materials that are  used to keep the tunnel dust free and grease free   and all of these things are in metal cans  the metal cans are subject to corrosion   sitting over the tunnels the metlife building  is absorbing a dangerous cocktail of gases   volatile material itself in the presence of oxygen  begins to oxidize and heat up and at some point   explodes into fire ball of flame erupts from below  and shatters the silence of the abandoned city 20 years after people there's a log jam at the international  railway bridge made up of giant ships   but it's not only the boats bearing down in most winters lake area freezes   typically two percent of that ice  works its way towards the upper niagara   that's 200 square miles of ice wanting to go  down the river and find its way to lake ontario in the time of humans a boom laid  out on the lake every december   blocked ice from colliding with the bridge so far it's lasted 20 years without help from  people can it stand forever i would say no and the   reason is ice coming off of lake erie there's no  boom anymore after people to stop it or deflect it in 1938 the so-called honeymoon  bridge over the niagara river   collapsed after a 100-foot  high ice jam plowed into it   now the railway bridge collapses under the  pressure massive ghost ships begin a new voyage   and the way to niagara falls just  20 miles downstream is wide open in the decades ahead some areas  will be visited by three forms of   toxic revenge in this american town  it's a future that's already happened 40 years after people a toxic wind blows through the abandoned  streets of middle america it's a future   that's already happened here in pitcher  oklahoma the most toxic town in america the residents were evicted not by one but   three forms of toxic revenge all caused by  the very thing that built this town mining pitcher oklahoma was once at the center of  the largest lead and zinc deposit in the world   now all that remains is poison that can't  be removed and a land that can't be fixed   things were different in the  first half of the 20th century as the world plunged into two world wars   tanks guns and ammunition  created a huge appetite for lead but the wars ended and in the 1950s  and 60s the mines shut down one by one   the last closed in 1970. it was a one commodity town they  were based upon lead and zinc   so like in other industrial uh towns once  that goes away the population decreases as many as 30 000 citizens  filled picture at its height now it's almost entirely abandoned  only a few dozen souls remain   pitcher was a lot like a lot of small towns in  the middle part of america you know these were   hard-working folks they had a mining history  the salt of the earth folks you hear about they   raised their families and they made do while the  mine closings drove some of the residents away it was what the mines left behind  that killed the town for good mountainous gravel mounds known as chat  piles are one form of toxic revenge the chatpow is the material that was left  over after the minerals were processed   so it's a gravel-like  substance the material that was   recoverable was taken this was the waste  no use for it it sat on the surface for   the better part of the century the chat piles  contain toxic doses of lead zinc and other metals gusty winds blowing over the plains  of the midwestern united states   scattered dust off the 75 million  tons of noxious gravel piled up here one of the casualties was this  little league baseball field   still in use for years even  as citizens fled from pitcher kids came out here to play you know  everybody was using it it's just kind   of a playground picnic tables you go have  a picnic over there this was just a hangout and now a dozen years after people  a tree claims the pitcher's mound and native prairie grass displaced  for decades is returning the seeds   for the old prairie are still in the dirt that  doesn't go away you can burn it you can till it   those seeds will always be there and  if you give them the right conditions   you know they're going to come back pitcher's main  street has been abandoned for more than 30 years   it wasn't closed by poison dust wafting from  chat piles it was another form of toxic revenge   the underground void created by the removal of  all that rock main street initially was shut down   because of a collapse the ground gave  in over on the left side of the street in the process of digging an estimated 300 miles  of tunnels miners had removed so much of the rock   and soil beneath main street that sinkholes had  started forming and swallowing parts of pitcher   some of these underground workings were 100 feet  from floor to ceiling they mined too close to   the surface in a lot of areas in some areas  they mined all the way up to the tree roots this area could cave in any time grass now springs over the pavement where miners  and their families once looked for supplies and where shopkeepers once welcomed patrons  saplings now stand guard there was a sears over   here there was a jc pennies you know over there  trading post uh hardware store this is where you   came to get you know what you needed even if it  was a drink or if it was a shirt you know or a   new pair of boots you know you had it pretty much  all right here you didn't have to go anywhere else it's all still on display  a pair of shoes magazines   and supplies antiquated cash registers still  stand by waiting for customers that will never show it wasn't until 10 years  after the last mines closed   that the underground caverns opened up by  mining delivered a third toxic shock to pitcher poisoned groundwater to reach the underground deposits miners had  to puncture a natural groundwater reservoir   during mining operations they pumped  about 55 million gallons a day   of water out of the underground  workings once mining ceased they   shut those pumps off and natural  groundwater began to fill the mines it's coming literally out of the   mine shafts because the the aquifer  here is what they were mining in by some estimates there's enough  polluted water below ground   to fill over a million residential swimming pools we'd be hard-pressed to find another human  activity that causes quite as much damage   as mining can and we open up the earth remove  what we want and leave it when we're finished and that's what's happened  here mines built the town but toxic water waste piles and sinkholes  destroyed it the lid was used to   bomb germany and japan know what can you say  you know uh what we use to destroy those places   destroyed this place and it's destroyed today the destruction continues in a life after people  as toxic revenge spreads around the planet   and soon more than water will be  falling over this natural wonder five decades into a life after people train cars loaded with cargo are deteriorating some of them carry chlorine it was used for  disinfecting drinking water and swimming pools   and manufacturing plastics but chlorine can be deadly and these  aging rail cars aren't heavily armored   the outer steel shell is only one tenth of an inch  thick the insulation is four inches of plastic half of them are already over 20 years old with  a life expectancy of about 50 years that assumes   of course that they're constantly inspected  they're constantly maintained and cleaned weakened by corrosion the undercarriage gives way most of that car empties in  a matter of less than an hour   and that means that the cloud of chlorine would  be very very dense and therefore extremely deadly   heavier than air chlorine gas  advances overground like a killer fog   immediately instantaneously  can't keep your eyes open   and you can't breathe any longer and  of course wildlife would have no clue and if chlorine gas touches water on  a tree in a lake or even on an animal   it immediately turns into acid it would  continue to acidify that water and   not only kill the fish and turtles  and other vegetation in the water   but probably resulted in a long-term death  of that system and the aquatic life in it in 2005 a rail accident in  graniteville south carolina   released 90 tons of chlorine gas into the  environment about half the carrying car's capacity   nine people died and another 250 had  to be treated for chlorine exposure   hazmat crews needed two weeks to decontaminate  a one mile radius around the site   the gas was only again partially released and  it wasn't in a populated area even those that   survived were horrified without  people to maintain the rail cars   these deadly fogs will continue  to be unleashed around the world 60 years after people a freighter grounded in the  niagara river is leaking   iron ore releasing a red stain into the water in the time of humans no commodity  was carried over the great lakes more   than iron ore these largest ships known as lakers  can hold 75 000 tons but they also draw more than   30 feet of water when afloat that's too deep  for sections of the niagara river near the falls but another laker is working  its way toward the falls   this one is not getting caught along the shallows the ones most likely to make it towards the  lip of the niagara falls are ships riding high   like this one out of ballast and carrying  no cargo that means they're hardly drawing   any water maybe five or ten feet it approaches  niagara falls once a gathering spot for newlyweds   for this ship the honeymoon is over they're not  armored they're not like a battleship in fact the   shells are quite thin like an eggshell half inch  couple inches depending on the size of the ship   as it reaches the edge the front half shears  off and tumbles the back follows incredibly   the 200-foot ship is actually  longer than the falls is high 350 miles to the south the metlife  building is also falling to pieces when it opened in 1963 the building's 58 floors   meant it stood as the seventh  tallest in the united states but it will soon give up its place on park avenue  because it's built in a rather exposed area   it's going to get more wind it's going to get  more rain than a typical new york city skyscraper already weakened by the methane explosion at its  base six decades of neglect have also assaulted   the building's steel and glass facade death  will come a piece at a time as sections of the   framework peel away this means the neighboring  grand central building is in the line of fire   grand central terminal has a near mortal enemy  right next door and i certainly expect to see   sections of the facade of the met life  building actually falling onto the roof   as glass and steel ring down has grand  central terminal reached the end of the line 150 years after people in new york city the  metlife building after enduring a gas fire   and shedding steel from its top floors for decades   finally breaks a giant section falls southward  tumbling onto the roof of grand central terminal   despite the attack from the metlife  building grand central's four granite walls   still stand the outside walls are actually  very thick granite they hold themselves up   the granite itself is the  structure of the building here you have a building grand central  terminal that was more than 50 years   old when the metlife building originally  the pan am building was built next to it   and yet even with that head start  on aging grand central terminal   will still be recognizable as a building  250 years maybe even 500 years after people 175 years after people at nuclear power plants around the world fires  in the spent fuel pools burned out long ago   still looming over these sites  are the iconic cooling towers that   symbolized mankind's mastery over the atom plant life clings to the rusting steel  lattice frame that surrounds the concrete   many nuclear plants are in agricultural  areas you're going to get a lot of   blowing soil and seeds  coming in there very quickly   a steel lattice ring at the base supports the  width of the 500-foot high concrete structure   but it doesn't have any strength left as soon  as a structure of this type begins to fail   it fails spectacularly the ring would tilt  and the tower would slide right off the ring   and collapse in a heap it would not come down  vertically it would slide and tip and fail   man's once mighty power plants of  the future are now reduced to rubble 1500 years after people   the american side of niagara falls is  undergoing a dramatic transformation for centuries the niagara river split at  goat island creating cascades over two bricks   the american falls and the horseshoe falls on the canadian side like all waterfalls niagara falls is  really not a thing it's an event it's water   flowing over a series of pranks  that are eventually moving backwards as water cascades over a fall it's eroding  the rock beneath and moving its brink upstream about 900 years ago there was a single  waterfall that went across like this and because there is actually  a double channel above   about 90 percent of the flow of the water  came over this side the canadian falls in the time of humans the horseshoe falls eroded  backward about a foot a year and because much   more water gushed over the horseshoe falls that  side eroded much faster than the american side after people the horseshoe falls are moving  backward even faster nearly six feet every   year because there are no longer any power  plants to divert water from the falls   once the horseshoe erodes upstream of goat island  you'll no longer have any water at all going over   the american falls for the american falls  life after people will be a life after water earth moves on in time scales too large  for man to have ever truly comprehended   mankind's toxic legacy lessens with every  passing year buried in the silt covered over   by grass and trees and carried away  by the tide in a life after people you

Channel: HISTORY

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Id: _BZMNZ8JoBw

Length: 44min 1sec (2641 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 04 2021