All language subtitles for Evacuate.Earth.4of7.Flooded.Earth

Walls of water pulverizing everything
they encounter, while the oceans

swallow the very ground beneath us.
Could the tide of a biblical flood wipe

humanity from the planet?

Leading minds join forces to craft
scientifically plausible scenarios of

Armageddon.

and find the secret to human salvation
in the face of ultimate disaster.

Can I get a water?

So is it true that it doesn't rain in
this desert at all? It hasn't rained in

some parts of this desert for 400 years.

We've all heard accounts of the biblical
flood.

It's one of the oldest worldwide
cataclysm stories there is. And many

have a similar myth.

There are great flood stories in almost
every society around here. An ancient

event by which the whole world was
flooded.

Hey look, it's raining.

But there's a flaw to the biblical flood
story. There just simply isn't enough

water on the planet to flood the entire
Earth.

Even if the ice caps melt, there'd still
be plenty of dry land.

The total amount of water on the Earth
has probably remained more or less

since it was put there 4 billion years
ago. It evaporates, forms clouds, and

those clouds rain and snow on the land.

That water flows down.

through the rivers and streams, and
returns to the ocean, continuously

water throughout planet Earth. So you
can't really flood the entire planet,

without bringing a bunch of water in
from outside the planet.

It's conceivable that lurking out in the
very frozen depths of space are planet

-sized objects that may be largely
composed of water.

It is not inconceivable to imagine a
water -rich asteroid making its way to

Earth's orbit. And it could contain
enough water to fill the Earth's oceans

thousands, millions of times over. When
objects come into the solar system from

the sunward direction, they can sneak up
on you.

There could be one heading here right
now, and we wouldn't even know it.

NASA is reporting that an enormous
object has just struck the moon. The

came in very fast, about 18 kilometers
per second. The moon was hit by a

rogue... comet. Asteroids that might hit
the Earth are often difficult to

detect. Reports from all over the globe
are describing a spectacular ring

forming in the sky.

What you're seeing up there are the
remains of the comet, literally billions

pieces of ice. NASA officials say the
comet was over 1 ,000 miles across.

The team is now looking through the
data. We hope in the next few days to

the science that we expect. Get an idea
of the composition.

Understand its properties.

Since yesterday morning, some of the
driest places in the world are now

intense rainfall.

The State Emergency Operations Center
remains at a level one or full

Noah and other scientists are trying to
determine whether the rain and the moon

collision are related.

The idea of water coming from outer
space is not that far -fetched. At one

the Earth was molten and then dry, and
that water probably came from outer

space.

Sometime between 3 .8 and 4 billion
years ago, when the Earth was still very

young, it was bombarded in a period
known as the Late Heavy Bombardment.

Over this time, perhaps 100 million
years or so, the Earth was constantly

hit by asteroids and cometary material.

And it's probable that a large amount of
the water we now find on the surface of

the Earth came during that time.

But what if a large icy body were to
come to Earth just as they did billions

years ago?

In that situation, if it falls apart
close enough to the Earth, the material

from it may begin to orbit the Earth on
its own.

It is likely that upon breakup, it would
form an accretion disk.

Almost like the rings of Saturn on a
smaller scale, the inner part of the

interacts with the outer part of the
Earth's atmosphere.

Material would begin to be dragged down
into the Earth's environment.

As these ice chunks come down into the
atmosphere, it has to start coming down

as rain.

It's unlikely that it would start
raining everywhere on the planet at the

time. The rains would just seem
unseasonably strong.

And we'd see heavy rain in humongous
quantities where we've never seen it

before.

One of the first effects we might see is
severe flash flooding.

Any place on Earth where rainfall is
somewhere rare, the ground's impermeable

there. So none of that water would be
getting absorbed. It would be very flash

flood prone.

In deserts, one would intuitively think
that soils would be so dry that they

would absorb the moisture very quickly.

But that ground is very hard packed.

It just does not soak up the water very
well.

When you get rain in a desert, it'll all
hit the ground and it all starts

funneling into channels that may not
have been used for a hundred years,

even a thousand years.

We have just introduced a whole bunch of
water into a landscape that can't deal

with it and that has to funnel it off in
the torment.

It could be a very dangerous situation.

It'd be almost like a wall of water
coming down a gully from miles away.

It'll mow down whatever's in its path.

If something as spectacular as an object
like this striking the moon in a

flooded Earth scenario were to happen, I
think the first reaction of scientists

would be shock and awe, like just about
everybody else. Oh, my gosh, what just

happened? But soon after that, I think
there'd be a lot of people who would

start trying to figure out what the
impact is going to be on everything from

climate to survival.

Hello, everyone. Good evening.

We've confirmed the rain is coming from
the debris of the accretion disk.

Small particles of ice enter the
atmosphere, they vaporize, dramatically

increasing the level of moisture.

The result is the unprecedented rainfall
that began two weeks ago, setting off

monsoon -like rain cycles in hundreds of
locations across the globe.

Keep in mind that we develop all our
science based on what we currently know.

When we look at changes, we think we can
model it, but dumping a whole bunch of

additional water into the system, that
would be...

an extraordinary change.

All of a sudden, regular cycles that we
can predict are thrown off. It's

impossible to accurately predict what
the final water volume will be, but

on the current rate of atmospheric
saturation, we believe the rain will

to fall for over 300 years.

Most people won't realize the dangers
early on.

People might even find it a bit
thrilling at first.

But within a few months, other problems
will begin to present themselves,

hitting us hardest where we're most
vulnerable, in our highly populated

What you see in a flash flood in a
desert is that there's water that

and runs very quickly.

In a city, a flash flood behaves very
similarly.

You have a lot of surfaces that can't
soak up the water. You have a lot of

buildings that are going to funnel the
water down in very particular ways.

Even though we think we design things
nicely in cities, we only design them to

some threshold values.

And those threshold values are now going
to be exceeded by this particular

scenario. That water has to find any
route it can to get to where it wants to

go.

The basement level of a building,
anything standing in the way of that

isn't going to be standing for long.

The collapse of the St. Louis Arch has
become a symbol of the destruction

by the rain crisis.

Fatalities now number in the hundreds of
thousands.

Some places on the globe enter their
60th straight day of rain.

Experts have linked the catastrophic
volume of rainfall directly to the

collision of the icy space body with the
moon.

The ISLS's Dr. Ronan Price says flash
flooding is the least of our worries,

the real threat to civilization is the
rise in the global sea level caused by

the rain.

It's impossible to accurately predict
what the final volume of water will be,

but our figures lead us to believe that
the sea level will rise at least 12 ,000

feet.

As massive rainstorms sweep the globe,
sea levels start to rise.

And billions of people on coastlines
around the world are now in danger.

Coastal infrastructure around the world
is extremely susceptible to changes in

sea level. It is one of the nightmare
disasters for any urban planner.

As seawater pours in, city
infrastructure begins to corrode. Cities

maybe a sense of invincibility.

But urban areas are designed with
drainage systems that typically only can

handle floods of a certain size.

Superstorm Sandy is a great example of
how seawater can come in and completely

destroy a city's electrical and
transportation system.

One reason it's so crippling is because
it's saltwater.

Salt water contains sodium chloride, and
ionic compounds like sodium chloride

are dangerous for two main reasons.

Number one, it's highly corrosive.

Number two, it's electrically
conductive.

So when this salt water hits the high
-voltage power lines, it's going to

completely electrified. If someone steps
into electrified water, whatever

current that water is carrying is going
to go through that person's body and

game over.

Electrocution is not the only threat
from saltwater inundating our electrical

infrastructure.

The saltwater is going to begin getting
into the power transmittal system.

It's not just the grid. It's everything
from the substations to the wires that

run from one place to the other.

So things will be shorting out. Power
grids are going to fall one by one in

rapid succession.

And with the world flooded, the lights
will go out.

Permanently.

Interestingly enough, too much water
could lead to less water to drink

the sewers are going to back up into
reservoirs and suddenly everything gets

mixed together and there's no drinkable
water.

As the sewage may mix with the drinking
water sources, infectious diseases will

develop.

People will suffer from gastrointestinal
disease like cholera.

People with cholera develop profuse
diarrheas.

and quick dehydration.

Unless adequately and quickly
rehydrated, it's a come and die very

Health authorities are cautioning
residents to stay clear of toxic

water. If you are in a flooded area,
remember to avoid tap water, even if

running and looks clean.

It could still be laced with
contamination that could make you sick

you. Only drink and wash rooms with
water from sealed containers.

Inland medical centers along evacuation
routes are unable to take in the surge

of patients from coastal areas.

Some have set up intake shelters in
local gymnasiums or stadiums. Those with

fewer resources are turning patients
away.

victims to keep moving further inland if
they need medical attention.

At this point, you'd see hundreds of
thousands of people lost.

You'd like to think that governments
around the world would come together to

find a solution.

But what could they do?

With an accretion disk of ice and water
surrounding our planet, one of the

options we have is to vaporize it.

To use large, space -based parabolic
mirrors.

The beauty of using the reflectors to
focus the sunlight on these objects is,

first of all, you don't have to supply
the power. The sun does that for you.

second, they can be designed such that
they have a very wide beam so that you

can cover a lot of area at a time.

You may ask yourself, is there going to
be enough energy to melt this ice from

these beams?

Just think about using a magnifying
glass to burn an ant, and a magnifying

is just a few inches across.

Now imagine you have a single parabolic
reflector that's the size of a football

field, and you can have many of these
all focusing on the same icy object, and

you could burn through a large chunk of
ice really quickly.

The challenge...

to taking on this project is will you be
able to get up enough reflectors in

enough time to remove enough of the ice
such that it's no longer a threat to

earth the problem with building a big
spaceship and sending it into space to

destroy this debris is that you're
sending it into the debris field that

meant to destroy the very strength of
the large reflectors is their weakness

they're a large target for collisions

You have to remember that these
particles are circling the Earth at

kilometers per second, which is faster
than a bullet. So any small piece that

hits your spacecraft is likely to
destroy it.

You're probably going to destroy your
spacecraft almost as soon as you put it

there.

Efforts to use large reflectors to melt
away the debris ring failed in

spectacular fashion this morning as the
ray of hope was destroyed as pilots

attempted to get into position above the
debris.

The spacecraft was designed jointly by
NASA and the European Space Agency and

cost over $2 billion to construct.

Money some claim would have been better
spent on evacuation efforts here on the

ground.

Realistically, there's no way to stop
the rain from the accretion disk from

falling. When thinking about how to get
rid of it in space,

I'm fresh out of practical ideas of how
to do that. So I think the next thing I

would do is turn to the community of
scientists and engineers and politicians

and figure out what the heck do we do on
the ground to live with the changing

situation. We'll be left with no other
option than to protect ourselves and

survive on Earth.

We're going to see all of the coastal
cities wiped out. And it's really not

the people who are on the coast who are
going to be affected.

I think the people in the Midwest,
people in much of the United States,

have a false sense of security that was
totally unwarranted.

A simple example is sinkholes.

Sinkholes generally occur in what we
call karst terrain. And a karst terrain

an area that's underlain by limestone or
gypsum or some sort of a rock that can

dissolve.

Basically, the rainfall passing through
the atmosphere becomes sufficiently

acidic to actually erode limestone
underground.

Sinkholes can be anywhere from several
feet to hundreds of feet deep. People on

the surface.

may be completely unaware that they're
standing above a giant hole underground

until a heavy rainstorm causes a
collapse.

There are some sinkholes that are many
miles across in different parts of the

world. Places like China, Vietnam,
Jamaica.

Within the United States, we actually
have some cities that are built on

-prone areas.

Cities like Nashville.

Tonight we have our reporters live on
location.

Three people had to be rescued after
ignoring warnings about driving into

floods.

Others thought about it, then backed
off. Before venturing in, orders early

hesitated, but as the water rose, the
passengers climbed onto the roof.

A large icy body from somewhere deep in
the solar system smashed into our moon

and has created an accretion disk
surrounding our planet.

The debris from that accretion disk is
now falling to Earth. Sea levels are

rising and the entire planet is
beginning to flood.

The scene in downtown Nashville was one
of pandemonium after a 35 -story

apartment building was swallowed by a
sinkhole.

The building collapsed at approximately
1015 last night, killing at least 143

people and injuring over 300 more.

Thousands of Nashville residents have
already evacuated to the Smoky

while others, fearing that the crisis
will only get worse...

chosen to make for higher elevations in
Colorado's Rocky Mountains.

Many of the people we've spoken to are
reluctant to leave their homes, despite

the knowledge that the floodwaters are
at their doorstep. We're searching

address by address to make sure we don't
miss anybody.

I don't think we'll have the resources
to react.

I think we're going to be able to save
some people, but once they realize the

magnitude of the disaster, it's going to
be incumbent on those people to save

themselves with assistance, but they'll
have to make a commitment to

cooperatively evacuate.

201, 202.

Go ahead. Be advised, female on rooftop,
looks like she might have an infant

with her.

We're coming.

Hold on.

Unlike a normal flood that we're
accustomed to, this one is not going to

People who are going to stay home
thinking that they're going to wait out

flood are just wrong.

They're going to have to move or perish.

Hey, good. Got it.

We also have experience with weather
forecasts being sometimes drastically

wrong. Some people, they'll think, well,
hey, maybe the flood won't happen.

Maybe the flood will happen someplace
else. My home will be okay.

Can you take us to Indianapolis?

No, ma 'am, Indianapolis went under two
days ago.

Oh, my God.

We've seen evacuations from floods like
Katrina and Fandi, and we've seen how

devastating those are.

That's nothing when you consider the
number of people that we'll have to

evacuate is far greater than anything
we've ever experienced before.

We know how to evacuate a few thousand
people. Thank you so much. You're

welcome. We don't know how to evacuate
50, 100 million people.

Look up the hill here.

But there's another problem here.

Let's say, by some miracle, we are able
to evacuate people from low -lying

areas. At best, that's just a stopgap.
The accretion disk orbiting the planet

has enough water to flood the Earth.

There are going to be more and more
people squeezed onto smaller...

Parts of land as they have to move up to
higher elevations.

The temperatures drop here as low as
minus two or minus three sometimes.

Most reasonable estimates are that we
need about one acre of food -producing

land per person per year to survive.

So as we move higher and higher, the
land gets smaller and smaller and less

arable, we're going to starve.

If human beings are going to find hope
in the face of this global flood, we're

going to have to build it.

One option we might have to manage all
this water might be to use a technique

that's thousands of years old.

Dams.

The water wall's construction would be
ongoing until the final water level is

reached a little less than 400 years
from now.

Ultimately, the wall would approach 13
,000 feet.

Essentially a man -made mountain range.
If there was a proposal then that one

city could be saved with a sea wall of
humongous expense, my best guess is that

engineers would be queuing up to do it
because of the engineering challenge.

I really believe you would want to build
what we call a ring dam or a ring levee

to keep it from collapsing on itself,
and you can do all those designs, and

can calculate the strength of materials,
you can calculate how much material,

and it's all existing technology.

As you can see from the projections and
budget in your packet, the enormous

expense and resource requirements make
this project impossible for any one

nation alone.

If we can get the political will behind
it... The construction project might be

possible, but the scale is
unprecedented.

It truly is amazing when we start
thinking about what it would require to

this. To put some human perspective to
this, we were in a hurry to build the

protective levee system around New
Orleans.

It still took us four years to protect
120 miles, and probably an average

of the levees there was 22 to 23 feet.

And 22 to 23 feet compared to 10 ,000
feet, it's not just the ratio of the

heights that makes the difference.

It's the whole volume. If I double the
height, the volume goes up by a factor

four.

You'd have to rip down some reasonable
-sized mountains to get enough material.

Transporting material is going to be a
problem.

There's two main ways of doing this. One
is to try to get the material as close

as you can to the source hydraulically.

and actually pump it in a slurry into
the place. A lot of levees are

this way. If you start trucking it, huge
trucks, the biggest we now have, might

be 150 cubic yards at a time.

And you start looking at how many trucks
it would take running 24 hours a day,

doing 100 loads, and you still come up
with these numbers that are just

enormous.

After extensive research, we believe the
best candidate city for this project is

Madrid. With the proper infrastructure,
we project that Greater Madrid can

sustain 20 million EU citizens.

Its elevation ensures decades of
construction before water levels reach

city. We believe that this plan is the
only one that ensures the preservation

a significant number of lives.

The Madrid Dam Project is using an
existing technology to save an existing

But this project has one big problem.
The resources it's using are enormous.

Realistically, we'll only be able to
create a project on this scale once.

So Madrid may end up being the last city
on Earth.

That means that most people on Earth are
going to be left outside the dam to

die.

Billions and billions of people with no
food.

Boise, Idaho is underwater.

Tucson is underwater.

Hong Kong is underwater.

As Europe fights to save Madrid,
billions of people around the world are

drowning.

But if history has taught us anything,
people don't give up.

Those who are left outside of the Madrid
wall, the great minds there, will come

up with new and different solutions.

Today marks the 70th anniversary of the
day the rain started.

The sea level has swelled to over 3 ,500
feet.

As Europe fights to save Madrid,
billions of people around the world are

drowning. Engineers in charge of
building Madrid's Great Dam remain

that construction will stay ahead of the
rising water. The willful destruction

of entire countries and cultures would
represent an unspeakable crime against

humanity. Those not granted entry into
the city limits of Madrid are asking,

what will happen to the rest of us?

People from other areas would try to get
into this city that has the dam.

Ultimately, most of them would fail.

There would be riots. There would be
looting. People would try to get each

other's boats. People would try to get
weapons.

That leaves billions and billions of
people with no solution.

People would be very desperate, but
luckily the dam is not our only hope.

will be other efforts, different
approaches to survival.

The real question is, what sort of
habitat could we exist on? We might have

build floating cities.

At this point, there are still places
where human civilization is functioning,

places at high altitude like Denver,
Colorado.

It's places like these where people will
be trying to engineer a future for

humanity. Okay, so this is our current R
&D facility.

We're still in the prototyping phase,
though production has begun on some of

components. This is a 115th scale
working prototype of the azimuth engine.

There'll be 57 of these thrusters placed
around the perimeter of the ship.

Denver already has a strong military
presence and a lot of...

high -tech infrastructure to build
projects of this scale. We have Lockheed

Martin, we have Northrop Grumman.

These are large government contractors.

In fact, Northrop Grumman already makes
aircraft carriers and submarines.

You couldn't find a better place to try
to build a future floating city.

Weeding the charge to find America's
answer to the Great Flood is a

of companies now headquartered in
Denver, Colorado.

Given more than 75 % of the entire U .S.
defense budget last week by an

emergency act of Congress, they are
charged with creating a real -life

Ark for humanity.

The President's budget request next year
in the February time frame will be

ready to talk about a little more
certainty where the dollars are.

this floating city plan say it will be
completed well ahead of Europe's Madrid

Dam project.

now been underway for nearly two
decades.

Practors claim that this floating city
needs to be much more than a big ship.

It's to have a chance at saving the
human race.

A floating city is not as far -fetched
as it sounds.

We already know how to build large
ships, but these vessels aren't designed

be self -sustaining.

The floating city will have to function
long after the last supplies and fuel

have been stocked.

Well, I think the biggest problem is
you've got to have food in order to

survive. You might think in this new
water world that we could just eat fish,

but there's a problem with that
assumption.

With this massive influx of fresh water
from space, the saltwater sea life is in

big trouble.

We would wind up with a lot of fish
floating on the surface of the ocean and

lot of fish washing up on the shores of
all the continents in the world.

It would not be a pretty sight.

The silver lining here is that not all
marine species would go extinct.

There are some that could adapt to these
new circumstances.

Salmon is a saltwater fish that goes up
into fresh water to spawn every year. So

these are fish that we could probably
farm.

We might not be limited to sea life
alone.

There's a new technology today to create
man -made floating wetlands.

It's made of foam that floats infused
with microfibers that will host bacteria

that filters the water and allows a
range of species to survive by cleaning

pollutants in the water. So we can
maintain these habitats for these

exploit them for food.

More hope for humanity might be coming
in the form of an enormous floating

but not anytime soon. Engineers are
saying the massive arc won't be

for another 65 years. That still
promises to be nearly a century earlier

the massive Madrid Dam.

By now, all of the small chunks of ice
in the inner accretion disk have been

deorbited by atmospheric drag.

And that's because the small objects
feel a greater drag force. So the small

objects are going to slow down and
deorbit earlier than the larger objects.

When the large objects begin to deorbit,
that's going to create an entirely new

problem.

With a huge portion of what's left of
the human population packed into one

the completion of the Madrid Dam would
be a monumental event.

are the secret to keeping the interior
of the dam wall from breaking down.

You can think of them as a giant bilge
pump.

They're running more or less constantly,
recycling the water that seeps into the

dam and feeding it back into the sea.

We take one offline every four days for
maintenance.

With that rotation, we have been able to
keep these pumps online. And as you can

see, they're going strong.

This city and this community are safe.

The inner edges of the accretion disk
are going to interact with the Earth's

outer atmosphere. And it turns out that
the less massive an object is, the more

drag force it's going to feel. So the
small objects are going to slow down and

deorbit earlier than the larger objects.

By now, atmospheric drag has deorbited
all of the small chunks of ice. But

that's not all the accretion disk has to
offer.

There are still large chunks up there.

And the planet is now nearly completely
covered with water.

When these large chunks of ice begin to
fall, they're going to hit Earth's new

global ocean, and they're going to
create giant tsunamis.

Tsunamis in deep water travel very fast,
you know, 100, 300 miles per hour,

depending on water depth.

Tsunamis such as the one that devastated
Japan in 2011 can travel at the speed

of a jumbo jet, 600 miles an hour, and
can grow to be 100 feet high.

Tsunamis caused by falling debris from
the accretion disk could be much worse.

If we have a bunch of space debris
coming in, then we know that... One hits

ocean, and another one's going to hit
the ocean.

These are going to generate waves.

When those waves come together, we get a
phenomenon we call interference.

They add to each other in height. So you
can get a wave that's twice the size of

the original waves.

This makes the tsunamis that hit Japan
look like Calvin and Hobbes playing in

the bathtub.

Sea walls are not a good defense against
tsunamis.

Two things happen to sea walls in
tsunamis. Some of them fail, and fail

catastrophically.

The other thing is they just don't stop
the water.

Once the water is above it, there's so
much momentum going over it that it's a

recipe for disaster.

Oh, my God!

Once the structure's breached, you're
likely to get a massive failure.

Water will find its path through.

You only really have to have one point
of weakness, one point where the water

reaches the wall, and the whole lot will
eventually come tumbling down.

The last remnant of human civilization
has just been submerged.

Just think of the impact of that.

We're left with this question.

If the sea wall, the most impressive
structure ever created by humans, can't

stand up to this global ocean, can
anything?

The last Earth -bound city has just been
wiped from the face of the Earth.

What's left of humanity is now a
floating city on Earth's new global

But we haven't seen the worst of what's
to come.

It may seem impossible to design a
floating city that can withstand these

of enormous waves.

But the fact is we probably could.

People have been sailing for a long
time, and the use of a ballast has been

perfected. A ballast is basically weight
below the waterline, and the whole

purpose of it is to keep the ship level
while it's sailing.

You can do creative things with a
ballast. There's a ship called the flip

that by simply adjusting the ballast on
the ship can take it from sailing level

and make it go vertical.

It's a challenge to do that, but they've
been doing it since the 60s. And in

this configuration, when the ship flips
vertical, it's very, very stable, even

in the roughest of seas.

It ought to be theoretically possible to
scale this up and make something much

larger than the flip ship.

and do exactly the same thing to get a
very stable configuration.

since the Earth was transformed by a
raging tide and a global flood.

If we can hold on, there is an end in
sight. The accretion disk will dissipate

over time, and eventually it will be
gone.

Unlike most astronomical phenomena,
which take millions or billions of years

take place, it is conceivable that an
accretion disk around the Earth

in... less than a few human lifetimes.
As that object breaks down and loses

its icy exterior, the disk itself will
begin to diminish.

In the end, all that may be left is a
new tiny moon that was once the rocky

of this icy body that had come in from
the outer solar system.

In the biblical flood, the waters
eventually receded and the Earth was

In our scenario, that's not the case.
The waters aren't going to recede. When

the accretion disk is finally depleted
and the rains stop, we'll be looking at

completely different world.

There would be no more dry land on the
planet. The Earth's oceans would have

been doubled or trebled in volume.

If you think about a water world, what
happens to the forest?

What happens to surface plant life?

Most of it may die.

Earth itself will survive.

Earth has survived for four and a half
billion years, and it's gone through

dramatic changes, cataclysms, volcanism,
asteroids, comets. The planet will

survive. The big question is, will we
survive?

After all this devastation, there is one
bright spot.

We're left on a world covered by water.
And after all, water is one of the

foundations of life itself, an
incredible source of energy.

We will be able to survive on into the
future.

It'll be different, but life still
exists in the global ocean. And on top,

beings will carry on.