Life After People_09of10_Roads to Nowhere
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00Imagine our planet without its people.
00:09Imagine that every single human being has simply disappeared.
00:14This isn't the story of how that might happen.
00:18It's the story of what happens to the world we leave behind.
00:24In the time of humans we were all car crazy, but now all roads lead to nowhere.
00:34The city of Detroit breaks down and the world faces a new kind of oil boom.
00:44Bizarre creatures stake their claim on the highways of Texas where there's no one to
00:48remember the Alamo, but plenty of things to destroy.
00:55And this once great American metropolis is already on a collision course with disaster.
01:03Welcome to Earth, population zero.
01:23It's one hour after people.
01:26All over the world oil refineries and chemical plants are still pumping out the lifeblood
01:31once used to power cars and keep aircraft aloft.
01:37Thick plumes of steam continue to billow out from the dense cluster of refineries situated
01:42along the Houston shipping channel.
01:48In the time of humans one-fifth of America's oil production passed through here, feeding
01:53an insatiable demand for fuel.
02:01Every day the United States consumed 20 million barrels of oil.
02:08Everything seems to be running smoothly, but suddenly alarm bells ring.
02:17Without people the oil refineries are in trouble.
02:21There's a problem in the reactor, a tall column that helps break oil down to petroleum.
02:27Each refinery depends on storage tanks, some holding as many as 20 million gallons of
02:32oil, to feed the reactor continually.
02:39Just an hour after people, one of the feeder tanks has run dry.
02:44When the tank goes empty, the conditions inside that reactor just go chaotic because it expects
02:50to have a continuous flow.
02:53In order for these reactors to work, you have to heat the oil to hundreds of degrees
02:57or maybe a thousand degrees.
03:00Without a fresh supply of incoming oil, the reactor turns the entire refinery into a ticking
03:06time bomb.
03:08In a life without people, there's nobody to react to that, and so the temperatures could
03:14escalate up to thousands, tens of thousands of degrees.
03:20But the reactor isn't entirely empty.
03:23Deadly gasoline vapors, designed to burn only inside of a car engine, linger.
03:29Runaway temperatures rupture the reactor, creating sparks and causing fumes to explode.
03:38Fire rushes through pipes that connect to a holding tank filled with already refined
03:42gasoline.
03:44It ignites.
03:47More sparks and heat ignite another tank, and then another.
03:56Within seconds, the entire refinery is on fire.
04:01In 2005, 15 workers died and another 170 were injured at an oil refinery in Texas City,
04:07when unmonitored gasoline fumes found an igniting spark.
04:13In a life after people, there will be nothing, and no one, to prevent these refinery explosions.
04:19You can have a fire in one refinery, and another one half a mile away, and then those could
04:24lead to other fires in those refineries.
04:26So they happen one at a time, but once they start happening, it just increases exponentially.
04:35The fuel that once propelled humans around the world now fuels a seemingly endless inferno.
04:48Three days after people.
04:52A once domesticated pet in central Texas is in trouble.
04:59She's called a Lacey, and she's no ordinary pet.
05:06Part sighthound, part shepherd, and part wolf, a Lacey is a born problem solver.
05:13Gifted with a sharp nose, she can scent any food that may be left behind.
05:20With a slim, athletic body, a Lacey has no trouble leaping onto the kitchen worktop.
05:27She's finding the last scraps of food in the house.
05:33With her options dwindling, and stomach growling, her basic instincts start to kick in.
05:40The first thing on the menu is going to be house cats, because they're going to be plentiful,
05:45and they're not real smart, you know, so they're going to hang around.
05:50And I've never owned a good Lacey dog that wouldn't kill a house cat.
05:53So it's going to be pretty easy pickings.
05:58While neighborhood cats provide the meat, the Lacey looks for water wherever she can
06:03find it.
06:06An outdoor dripping tap throws her a lifeline.
06:11But once the tap stops dripping in central Texas, the Lacey faces a decision.
06:18Lacey dogs were bred to work in the high heat, but they do have to have water.
06:23I think their first objective would be to find a good water source.
06:28Without food or water, her former owner's home is useless to the Lacey.
06:37The Lacey dog is a high drive working dog, and they're not content being a house dog.
06:45They were bred to round up range hogs and wild cattle.
06:50Their boundless energy serves her well in central Texas, where the annual rainfall is
06:5435 inches, so water won't be a problem.
06:59For food, the Lacey has work to do.
07:10Four days after people.
07:14Detroit is silent.
07:18In the birthplace of the motor car, there are no longer any on the road.
07:25Nor are there any lorries to shuttle cargo over the Ambassador Bridge into Canada.
07:33The Renaissance Center, the tallest building in the state, stands empty.
07:40Four miles east of the center, on the banks of the Detroit River, at the city's water
07:44works plant, some machines are still humming.
07:50Even though power plants are beginning to fail across the country.
07:57Once you have main power failure, we would switch over to generator power.
08:04The diesel fuel powering the generators will last for two more days, and so it's business
08:09as usual at the water works, even without people.
08:18The electronic boards at system control continue to keep track of the half a billion gallons
08:22of water filling the city's pipes.
08:29But in a life after people, catastrophe looms.
08:33There's no one around to turn on a tap.
08:37You're pumping water into a system that's not being used.
08:41So eventually you're going to max out the capacity of the pipes.
08:46Beneath the city center, four foot diameter pipes dating back to the 19th century are
08:51the weakest links in the system.
08:57In their lifetime, they've witnessed the birth of the Model T, the rise of the big three
09:01motor car producers, and the collapse of manufacturing.
09:07These pipes are finished.
09:10Things are going to be completely full and start to burst.
09:17Compounding the disaster, much of the city is built on clay.
09:21The clay is impervious to the flow of water.
09:23So to the extent that there's water saturating the clay, the tendency is for the water to
09:27go up.
09:28The pressure continues building, pushing up sidewalk and street until the sidewalk and
09:37street buck off.
09:40Ten foot high fountains turn Detroit streets into thoroughfares for water.
09:53One week into a life after people.
09:57As the oil refineries continue to burn in Texas, the 100,000 longhorn steer living throughout
10:05the state on open ranches or hemmed in barns are facing a crisis.
10:13The 800 kilo beasts rely on weekly hay rations.
10:18Without people to replenish food stocks and with barbed wire and fencing keeping them
10:22in, it looks like the end of the road for the longhorn.
10:28But these lumbering beasts aren't feeling anxious.
10:31If they wanted to, this guy's big enough to knock down any pin in here, but he's so
10:35well trained and so docile that he doesn't have any need, plus he's already given everything
10:41he needs to survive and he knows it, he's content.
10:45Longhorns descend from Spanish cattle, a tough breed brought to the new world on board Columbus's
10:50ships.
10:51It's in their blood to eat whatever's available.
10:53With all cattle are herbivores, so they eat grass.
10:57The longhorn cattle, more than other breeds of cattle, will also eat brush and browse
11:02and leaves.
11:03They'll eat anything they need to survive.
11:06They also have a pair of not-so-secret weapons.
11:10That's what they have these horns for, to protect themselves against the coyotes and
11:13the wolves and the bears.
11:16There's not many animals that will want to go up and tangle with a set of horns like
11:19this.
11:23Although individual longhorns have managed to survive these first few days without humans,
11:28their survival as a species is still in doubt.
11:35In a life after people, the changes are swift throughout Texas.
11:40As oil fires continue their march of destruction, San Antonio faces imminent death, while local
11:46wildlife thrives in unexpected places.
12:00It's two months after people.
12:04Supplies of oil and petrol haven't run out yet.
12:10An apocalyptic firestorm still burns along Houston's shipping channel.
12:16In the time of humans, this area processed most of the one million barrels of crude oil
12:20produced in Texas every day, more than any other state in the country.
12:30Two hundred miles west is the city of San Antonio, with its iconic landmark, the Alamo.
12:40Nearby, the San Antonio River streams peacefully through the abandoned river walk.
12:48In the time of humans, this was the most popular gathering spot in the city.
12:55Now once-packed office towers and hotels look down over empty barges waiting for tourists
13:02who will never show.
13:06The San Antonio River is essentially what created the city of San Antonio.
13:12The river has attracted people for centuries.
13:15Native Americans who lived here named their settlement Refreshing Waters.
13:20But in a life after people, this tide is about to turn.
13:27Right now it's highly engineered.
13:28Man has influenced it, we have straightened it, we have put in flood control structures.
13:34Now all that stands between the river and the destruction of the city is a steady rain.
13:40Something that's all too common in this part of the country.
13:44The Midwest United States has tornado alley.
13:47We in Texas have flash flood alley, running up I-35 from San Antonio all the way to Dallas.
13:54In this part of the country, warm, moist air drifting inland from the Gulf Coast collides
13:59with cooler, drier air sweeping in from the north, bringing frequent rainstorms to central Texas.
14:09As a result, half of the top 12 world records for rainfall in 48 hours originate in flash flood alley.
14:18First rain event that would occur following life after people, basically the downtown
14:23area, the river walk area that we know and love today, that would be the first casualty.
14:29The buildings of the river walk stand level with the San Antonio river, some 15 feet below
14:34the surrounding streets.
14:38Where the San Antonio river bends into the city center, at the entrance to the river
14:41walk, a three ton flood gate stands guard.
14:45Basically what we're looking at here, you can see the lines in the wall there, that's
14:49actually the groove that will actually hold the gate door as it comes down.
14:52That door is actually above us right now in the open position.
14:56In life after people, basically there would be no one here to lower this gate during a rain event.
15:05In 1921, a burst of rain inundated the city center with up to 10 feet of water, killing 50 people.
15:16Behind me, the river is only about 5 to 6 inches at its lowest point below the sidewalk,
15:21so it wouldn't take that much rain to actually raise the water level in this area and begin
15:25flooding out all the restaurants, all of the hotel space, all of the business space.
15:31Meanwhile, above the river walk, at street level, the Alamo, the oldest building in the
15:37city, silently awaits the assault.
15:52Three months after people, Houston's oil refinery fires have finally exhausted their fuel.
15:59And since the world's oil refineries now lie in ruins, the 1.2 trillion barrels of crude
16:05oil that sit untapped beneath the earth's surface will never propel any man-made machine again.
16:13In the scrublands of Central Texas, the Lacey that's staked out on her own is having no
16:21trouble surviving without people around, and she's not alone.
16:26These enterprising canines have discovered food to be plentiful in Central Texas.
16:31The Lacey would most likely adapt to catching hogs faster than anything else.
16:38In the time of humans, two million feral hogs scoured the Texas countryside.
16:44Without hunters to keep their numbers in check, the wild pigs are rampant.
16:50A feral hog, it takes three months, three weeks and three days to have a litter of pigs.
16:55They will double their population every four months.
16:58They can't have up to 13 pigs in a litter.
17:01That's a lot of pork on the ground.
17:05The Lacey's herding instincts have awakened a primal hunting urge.
17:10Let's take a lamb, for instance.
17:12This lamb has been raised for ten generations as a house pet.
17:15They have no prey drive.
17:17They have no idea how to get out there and catch anything.
17:20You take a Lacey dog, they've got the prey drive.
17:23They'll get out there and get it done.
17:25They know what it takes to bring an animal down.
17:30Laces are not large enough to bring down hogs that weigh over 90 kilos on their own.
17:35But in packs, they thrive.
17:39With a seemingly never-ending supply of food, the Lacey dog seems destined for success.
17:51Six months after people.
17:53And another Texas resident is enjoying the new world order.
17:57The nine-banded armadillo.
18:00Its armor of bony plates and leathery skin is designed to protect it from predators.
18:06Except for one.
18:09In the time of humans, their most dangerous enemy was traffic.
18:16Countless cars and lorries roared down streets and roads.
18:20When it came to getting out of the way, their instincts failed them.
18:25With the armadillos, actually, they have a tendency to vertically jump.
18:31That tendency to jump, sometimes as high as three or four feet,
18:35serves them well against most predators by scaring them away.
18:39But when the attacker is a speeding car, the encounter is nearly always fatal.
18:47No state in the country had more of these death traps for armadillos than Texas,
18:51with its 80,000 miles of roads.
18:59Now, with no traffic at all, armadillos own the roads.
19:05When we come to a point where there's no humans around,
19:08we're going to see an increased habitat for the armadillos.
19:14Man's abandoned cities offer the armadillos new territories to explore,
19:19and they won't be confined to Texas.
19:23Even in the time of humans, they spread deep into Florida,
19:27as far west as Nebraska, and as far north as southern Illinois.
19:33Only cold weather halts their advance.
19:37They thrive here in Texas because of the climate.
19:40We have very mild winters.
19:43They don't have a lot of hair to actually insulate them to keep them warm,
19:46so it's important for them to be in temperatures where it's above freezing.
19:52As long as the weather stays warm and there's no traffic,
19:55armadillos will do very well in a life after people.
20:08A quarter of a century after people,
20:10the extreme Detroit climate is taking its toll on the city's skyline.
20:16It's tough being a building in Detroit because of the extremes of weather here.
20:21Very, very hot summers, very cold winters.
20:25There's freezing, there's thawing, there's wind, there's rain, there's ice.
20:32You're right by the river, and as a result,
20:35you get quite a bit of moisture in the air as well.
20:38It's very open space, so you do get very, very high winds.
20:44In the time of humans, the Renaissance Center stood as a monument
20:48to the industry that delivered Detroit into a golden age.
20:53In the city where Henry Ford's modern assembly line made the family car affordable,
20:58his grandson commissioned the construction of the Renaissance Center.
21:03Two decades later, the entire complex, including the 73-story Central Tower,
21:08the tallest building in Michigan, was purchased by General Motors,
21:12once the largest car manufacturer in the world.
21:20The Renaissance Center is a classic example of late 1960s, 1970s design.
21:27It's basically steel-framed, and the outer skin is almost entirely glass.
21:33The frames that hold the windows in, the steel frame that holds the building up,
21:40and the glass all expand and contract and vibrate in different ways.
21:46And the result is where they meet gets worn a little bit.
21:5125 years without people has turned the Renaissance Center's atrium into a forest.
21:58Although the decorative palms have died,
22:00native trees like shagbark hickories and giant oaks have moved in.
22:05As long as the structure provides some shelter,
22:09you're going to get plant and animal life inside there.
22:12So you'd have feral dogs, wolves, wolverines,
22:16would start coming in, and you have this ecosystem there.
22:1925 years of neglect have already wrecked some parts of the Motor City.
22:26So what will Detroit look like 40 years after people?
22:31We know, because it's already happened.
22:4740 years after people.
22:52Detroit is a wreck.
22:55It's a future that has already come to pass in some areas of the city,
23:02where a population exodus has decimated once-bustling factories and crowded city blocks.
23:17From 1900 to 1930, the burgeoning motor industry powered a growth spurt in Detroit.
23:25The city's population skyrocketed more than five-fold
23:28to more than a million and a half inhabitants.
23:35Abandoned for 40 years, Detroit's Packard plant,
23:39five stories and 47 buildings,
23:42is a sad reminder of a once-thriving car industry that pumped life into the city.
23:54The Packard name was once synonymous with luxury,
23:57churning out everything from convertibles to limousines.
24:03But the public stopped buying its designs.
24:07Burdened with a crushing debt, Packard closed its doors.
24:12And this is what nature achieves in 40 years without people.
24:18In that 40 years since the people have left,
24:21plants and animals have colonized the area.
24:26Even the roof is slowly turning into a forest.
24:34Notice the trees right along the wall.
24:37Well, how did they get there?
24:39Basically, windblown seeds wedge themselves into the crack
24:44that almost inevitably exists where pavement meets a wall.
24:49These are goldenrod.
24:51Goldenrod is a pioneer plant.
24:54It's very old, from very, very ancient times.
24:58And it will grow in almost anything, as many gardeners know.
25:03Without windows, the inside is beginning to look like the outside.
25:09We're up on the fifth floor now of this old building.
25:13What you're seeing here is the original hardwood floor,
25:17and you notice that it's bowed upward.
25:20The wood has been soaking all through the winter,
25:22and as a result, the wood has expanded.
25:26Underneath the wood, there's actually quite a bit of wood,
25:29Underneath the wood, there's actually quite a bit of what you would call dirt.
25:35You can see it here.
25:37You can see it here.
25:40You see it here.
25:41Basically, what's happening is dirt is blowing in from outside.
25:45In another 30 or 40 years, most of this wood will be gone.
25:50What you're going to see is basically a giant flowerbed.
25:55Where workers once assembled Packard engines, saplings now take root.
26:01Moss has begun to colonize the floorboards.
26:09Meanwhile, the harsh climate is eating away at the building's foundations.
26:15The entryway wall itself, over time, mainly due to freezing and thawing,
26:21has warped away and come out this way a little bit.
26:25As it did that, it actually cracked this guard.
26:30This guard is actually a bell of very thick cast iron.
26:36Now, on the other side of the entrance,
26:39we see the logical conclusion of that,
26:42and you get some idea of the thickness.
26:44Can you imagine, basically, that a little bit of water
26:48and a little bit of ice getting in here can actually pull this apart
26:53and cause these kinds of cracks?
26:55What's happened here is the bell is pretty much totally worn away
26:59because it's cracked out.
27:06The seasons haven't been any kinder either to homes once cared for by people.
27:13As competition from foreign car manufacturers intensified,
27:16a million residents moved out of the urban centre between 1950 and 1980,
27:23left behind are huge areas of abandoned neighbourhoods.
27:28Of the 137 square miles that make up the city,
27:3160 are completely empty of people.
27:34What are left are just ugly reminders of a former elegance.
27:39This building here has been abandoned for about 40 years.
27:45The harsh climate of Detroit accelerated the deterioration of this building.
27:50In this case, the freezing and thawing during the winter
27:54and the fairly heavy rainfall during the year
27:58were what finally destroyed this building.
28:07This brick-and-mortar structure is decaying from the top down.
28:12Weather, especially water through the roof, has pretty much destroyed it.
28:17What we're looking at is actually a building with very solid brick walls.
28:25Water seeps into the brick, expanding and contracting as it freezes and thaws,
28:30prying it away from the façade.
28:34In another 75 years, the entire building will crumble into an unrecognisable heap.
28:41A century after that, nothing will remain.
28:46Brick-and-mortar is basically clay and limestone,
28:49very much like the surrounding soil.
28:52You would have to be an expert to know there was ever a house there.
29:01In this harsh climate, it doesn't take long for a building to crumble.
29:07This school has only been abandoned for two years.
29:11As the population continues to decline in Detroit,
29:14there are fewer children to teach, so schools continue to close.
29:20This is one summer and two winters in Detroit have done this kind of damage.
29:26The paint is meant to be an interior paint.
29:29It's not meant to withstand a lot of water
29:32and it's not meant to withstand a lot of temperature changes.
29:36Now, the ceiling is plaster.
29:38The reason it collapsed is, for the most part,
29:41water coming in in the classroom above.
29:44Now, over the next few years, the rest of the ceiling will collapse
29:48and one thing that would happen is the plaster dust itself
29:53catches dirt, catches seeds.
29:56It's not a nutrient itself that would nurture plant life,
30:00but it could be the beginning.
30:09Fifty years after people.
30:14Detroit, the city once ruled by car manufacturers, crumbles.
30:24A place that once produced 15 million new cars every year
30:28now sees those same cars abandoned and decaying on its streets.
30:39None of them have inflated tyres anymore,
30:42but the rubber and synthetics will last for hundreds of years.
30:50Within another 25 years, the tough Detroit climate will reduce this car...
30:57..to a skeleton.
31:011,500 miles away in San Antonio,
31:04repeated rains have spawned cycles of flooding along the river walk.
31:10Waterlogged foundations leave the buildings tilting at odd angles
31:14as silt and sand inundate the area.
31:19I call it death by inches.
31:22It happens slowly, it happens insidiously.
31:26The river itself, although not flowing very fast,
31:30would flood over and over again,
31:32bringing a lot of silt, a lot of sand,
31:35to basically cover part of that area.
31:39The buildings sink into it and settle, but they sink unevenly.
31:46Eventually, the lean is too much for one of the buildings.
31:51Meanwhile, the Alamo façade stares back untouched
31:55from its elevated perch on the city's street level.
32:01But an enemy is attacking the compound from within.
32:06In the time of humans,
32:08live oaks already dominated the Alamo's courtyard.
32:14The Alamo's courtyard was once the home of the Alamo family,
32:18the Alamo's courtyard.
32:21We have many oak trees,
32:24and those oak trees tend to grow very large.
32:27The limbs will extend outward,
32:30and the weight of the limbs causes them to reach down to the earth,
32:34where they support themselves.
32:38Without people to redirect the massive limbs,
32:41the trees will begin to demolish the Alamo walls.
32:49The limb behind me is one of those
32:52that's been held up by an iron post
32:55to keep it off of the ground.
32:58Without people to constantly cut the limbs back,
33:02that limb would continue to grow,
33:04and at some point, it would crush the wall.
33:10Those oak trees would drop acorns as well,
33:13and wildlife would come over here
33:16and they would bring seeds.
33:20Over 200 years after the Alamo fell to the invading Mexican army,
33:25an army of trees conquers it again.
33:29The Alamo doesn't stand a chance.
33:40150 years after people.
33:43When it opened as a gateway to Ontario in 1929,
33:47Detroit's 1,850-foot-long Ambassador Bridge
33:51was the longest suspension bridge in the world.
33:57In the time of humans,
33:59this was the busiest border crossing between the US and Canada,
34:02carrying 25% of the goods,
34:04the majority in car parts, traded between the two countries.
34:09But as the vertical suspension cables give way,
34:12nothing will ever cross this bridge again.
34:18Those vertical suspension cables are exposed to the wind,
34:22exposed to the weather,
34:24and they vibrate quite a bit in the wind.
34:27So they're a major wear area
34:30and a major maintenance problem for any kind of bridge.
34:35But in a life after people,
34:37there is no-one to repair the frays in the vertical cables.
34:42The weak spots are basically down at the bottom of the cable
34:47where the cables actually tie into the deck.
34:52The vertical cables lay over one of two horizontal white lines
34:56that are connected to the bridge.
35:00The vertical cables lay over one of two horizontal white lines
35:04known as catenary cables.
35:0637 steel strands, each about a foot in diameter,
35:10interweave to form just one of the catenary cables.
35:18As multiple cables break,
35:20it actually changes the shape of the white catenary cable
35:25that holds the whole thing up
35:27because it's no longer taking an even amount of weight at each interval.
35:36Another vertical cable snaps
35:39and a segment of the deck crashes into the river.
35:46A 150-foot gap now gashes through the road to Canada.
35:50Within seconds, the other sections fall.
35:58In the century to come,
36:00the wheels of progress continue to roll backwards
36:04as the seat of the motor industry monarchy disintegrates.
36:19150 years after people.
36:22In Detroit, just upstream of the river,
36:25in Detroit, just upstream from the Ambassador Bridge,
36:29the central tower of the Renaissance Centre
36:32still stands taller than any other building.
36:37Broken windows have left the structure
36:39unable to retain any heat from the sun.
36:44There's a lot of rubble on them.
36:46During the winter, a fair amount of ice loading would build up
36:49because the sun would not directly warm the building
36:53because most of the glass would be gone.
36:56One of the upper floors finally loses its grip.
37:01And the rest of the central tower collapses,
37:04bringing down one of the adjoining buildings as it falls.
37:24200 years after people.
37:30On the skeleton of the Ambassador Bridge,
37:32the white horizontal catenary cable that once held up the span
37:36is now helping to topple its remains.
37:42That big cable is anchored on either side, on either shore,
37:46and when the deck is no longer there,
37:50the tension will be uneven.
37:53The big vertical towers would bend toward the land side.
37:59The tops would spread apart,
38:02and that would put quite a bit of strain on those towers.
38:09The towers finally yield,
38:11and the last vestiges of a great transportation link disappear.
38:21In San Antonio, the river has swallowed the city.
38:27The whole downtown San Antonio area
38:30basically has little hills and little remnants of buildings.
38:37The Alamo is still standing, but only barely.
38:42Like the great stone temples of Cambodia's Angkor Wat,
38:45years of out-of-control tree growth have the structure in a death grip.
38:50There is no one to remember the Alamo,
38:52and more importantly, no one to repair it.
39:00As the Alamo falls, another Texas icon soldiers on.
39:08After breaking out into the wild,
39:10longhorn cattle are finding that history is repeating itself.
39:16In the 1800s, they escaped from the confines of their Spanish missionary masters.
39:24These animals evolved into an animal that could survive on its own.
39:28They grew very long in leg, very strong hooves,
39:31so they could travel long distances for water and forage.
39:38In this earlier life without people,
39:40longhorns acquired a genetic diversity that now serves them very well.
39:46We don't need veterinarians even today with our cattle.
39:49They're extremely disease resistant.
39:51It's what makes a longhorn adaptable without humans.
39:56Many dairy and beef cattle died out quickly in a life after people
40:00because they struggled to give birth without human assistance.
40:05Longhorns don't have that problem.
40:08The cows would hit the ground and start running immediately.
40:11So as far as an animal that can survive without humans today,
40:14the Texas longhorn definitely can because they've already proven they can do it.
40:21Two centuries into a life after people,
40:23they number in the tens of millions just as they did in the 1800s.
40:28One thousand years after people.
40:31Along the banks of the Detroit River,
40:33this is what has become of the Motor City.
40:36Massive oak trees looking down on wetlands.
40:42In the city that gave birth to the Texas longhorns,
40:45the Texas longhorns were the first to be born.
40:50The Texas longhorns were the first to be born.
40:54In the city that gave birth to the history changing V8 engine,
40:58the SUV and pickups,
41:00the sound of a roaring engine is long forgotten.
41:13But there is one place where an American made vehicle can still be found.
41:18Over 200,000 miles away from Detroit,
41:21three moon buggies remain,
41:23left behind by three Apollo missions.
41:32They stand in near mint condition
41:34because the moon's environment doesn't attack man's technology like Earth's does.
41:40It has no water, it has no air, it has no active geology.
41:44So anything that is on the moon's surface will still be there.
41:49So what is left from the Apollo missions, that will be perfect.
41:56All that's left of a civilization once dominated by vehicles
42:00are these motionless relics.
42:05This life after people is quiet and peaceful.
42:14And still.