I didn’t believe it would hold up at the time, and, given subsequent real-life events, I think we can definitively say that the WTC wouldn’t have survived a thousand-foot tidal wave.
I think that the strength required of a building if it were to survive a wave like this would be far, far beyond our current technological and engineering limits. Realistically, I think, if the wave in Deep Impact actually hit Manhattan, it would pretty much scrape it down to bedrock. If anything, the movie dramatically underestimated the force and power of that wave (but the scene was spectacular anyway).
I remember this programme some time ago. Scientists were postulating whether any likely ares of the earth could produce a tsunami, and they found one, they think.
Quote:
“The growing concern is that the ideal conditions for just such a landslide - and consequent mega-tsunami - now exist on the island of La Palma in the Canaries. In 1949 the southern volcano on the island erupted. During the eruption an enormous crack appeared across one side of the volcano, as the western half slipped a few metres towards the Atlantic before stopping in its tracks. Although the volcano presents no danger while it is quiescent, scientists believe the western flank will give way completely during some future eruption on the summit of the volcano. In other words, any time in the next few thousand years a huge section of southern La Palma, weighing 500 thousand million tonnes, will fall into the Atlantic ocean.”
The resultant tsunami (if all this really occurs) will hit the eastern coast of the USA.
If you choose the Transcript button at he bottom of the page you can read what the programme was all about
Are we sure that a balloon is a bad idea? I’d be looking for something like this. 16,000 feet would seem to pretty safe from wave-wind effects (although cold and thin air would have their obvious dangers).
Like Boy Scouts and Batman: be prepared.
While the wave would recede, think what a foot of rain does to a place and how long it takes to drain off. Multiply. Any soil, now mud, that wasn’t washed all the way into the ocean will take weeks to dry out enough to walk on.
And the scouring effect would be horrendous. Coastal skyscrapers wouldn’t be just knocked down. You wouldn’t be able to find the footings. Bedrock moves easily under such conditions. There’s some nice footage around of house size rocks flowing thru the Grand Canyon during floods. And that’s just a river.
As noted before, the scablands of SE Washington show what a “small” volume of water can do even when spread over a large area.
His death is not reported in the book – just that he’s heading for a tall building when last seen.
Larry Niven mentioned in X-Space (a retrospective of his work for which he did new intros. and commentary) that one of the most requested scenes/plot elements regarding a potential sequel was that he live through it. (No word on them actually writing the sequel though.)
I think that 6000 feet are a reasonable safety height against a 1000 feet tsunami; besides a balloon floats WITH the air mass it´s in; so even if the wind was 200 MPH the people on the balloon wouldn´t notice it.
I understand that Michael Jackson owns a submarine for just such an occasion. I’d personally own a 'copter as mentioned above, but that’s just me.
About the underground idea: I imagine the outrushing water might be abrasive, but I don’t think it would be that bad since it’s not contained, and you can build for it.
I’d be more worried about being buried in debris. Being safe 150’ underground in a tin can doesn’t make me feel that good if I only started out 100’ down. Better pack a shovel.
I think a cave in a cliff in the side of a mountain facing away from the tsunami would be pretty ideal, providing the cave didn’t slope downwards into the mountain too much. Even if water washes over the mountain, most of it should miss the cave mouth and what goes in will be travelling very slowly. The cave entrance would be unlikely to be seriously blocked, and unless the whole mountain collapses you shold be ok. You could probably get a similar effect with a castle on the far side of the mountain.
A mass of water at 400 miles per hour (180 metres/sec) has enough energy to rise one mile (1600 metres), neglecting friction. And for water rising over other water, friction isn’t going to be very great.
The Trade Centers couldn’t survive a 100 ton airplane strike, let alone a billion tons of fast moving water.
Assuming the structure could survive being hit with a big wave (which it can’t), water would break into every opening and instantly flood the entire building which is still under thousands of feet of water.
Funny thing about water. It flows into stuff.
ready29003 - You might as well build your pod out of aluminum foil for all the good it would do. A 5000 foot wave like Deep Impact would crush anything you could put together in 10 hours with about 2000 psi of pressure. The only way to not be killed is to get above it with an aircraft or head out to deep water.
A tsunami in the open sea travels 600mph and has a very long wavelength so it’s height is only a few feet (essentially undetectable if you’re bobing along in a boat). As it approaches the shore, it piles up on itself - slowing, but also gaining height.
Being in a nitpicking mood today, I must point out that a tsunami is a large wave caused by seismic activity (earthquake, volcano, landslide, etc.). A meteor would not cause a tsunami, however it maybe would create a “meteoric shock wave”.
Also, can anyone find a cite for the size and speed of the shock wave? My intuition says a meteor large enough to create a such a large wave would actually vaporize the water instead. The friction of the wave with the air/water it’s trying to move through would probably heat everything up to much higher than 100 deg C.
There will be plenty of vaporized water, but since we’re talking ocean strike here, you can’t vaporize the whole thing and what’s left will certainly, um, oscillate (no, we don’t need any Madonna + Brittany remarks here).
The shock wave in the water would not be the only destructive effect. As the vaporized water condenses, salt-water rain and extensive cloud cover would cause brutal ecologic changes. That’s what got the dinos.
