The Sears Tower, now renamed as the Willis Tower, is a 110-story skyscraper in Chicago, Illinois, and the second tallest building in the United States. It was finished in 1973 and became the tallest building in the world, at 1,451 feet, a rank it held for 25 years. The structure has a unique "bundled tube" design, made by nine separate tubes, with only two of the tubes reaching to the top 108th floor.
Coverage[]
The Sears Tower is featured in the Life After People Documentary and Outbreak.
Documentary[]
In the Life After People Documentary, it was seen in the one year segment when the view zoomed out of downtown to show the burning of Chicago.
It was then featured in 200 years after people when decay has overtaken the city of Chicago, along with the Sears Tower. The decay caused the Sears Tower, the tallest man-made structure in North America, to collapse as it ended its reign, with no further explanation on its processes of destruction.
Outbreak[]
In Outbreak, it is first introduce in 1 day after people when the Sears Tower and John Hancock Center are standing like giant tombstones and with no one to maintain the structure.
While it is not mentioned, although seen, in 3 days after people, it is crucial in the future scenario when a rainstorm hits Chicago and without people to divert or reverse the current to Lake Michigan, it cause a catastrophic result. Richard Lanyon stated that the lower areas of downtown Chicago and the basements of buildings along the river would be flooded, this include the Sears Tower, just one block away from the river itself.
In 10 years after people, the Sears Tower is slowly deteriorating due to the rainwater which rots the Sears Tower's roof. The moisture seeps down into the structure and begins rusting the bolts holding the giant glass and aluminium panels on the exterior while the freezing wind, rain, and snow off Lake Michigan violently batter the hulking structure. This cause some of the plates to peel off the building and crash into the streets below.
The wires break and the elevator freefalls.
In 200 years segment, the Sears Tower is beginning to totter when decades of ferocious weather have battered the landmark into a hollowed out, honeycomb husk, with yet more of the remaining windows falling out. Inside the Sears Tower, it contains 104 separate lifts within multiple shafts that ends in different levels of the building. While the cables rust and snap, the lift's brakes continue to work, stopping it until they too eventually corrode and finally give way causing the lifts to plummet down. Matthew Kubik stated that the 104 elevators at different times come down the shafts, blasting through the floors like a bomb, cutting through the building, and dragging down the floors and the structure around them. There are 2 lifts that connect the ground floor to the observation deck over a quarter of a mile above the street, and one of the 3 ton lift cabs free-falls from the top floor hitting the ground floor at more than 200mph which generates more than 1 and a half million pounds of force on its impact.
Its demise is revealed that the lifts drop are not yet enough to topple the structure, but within the bedrock are the 114 pilings driven into it that holds up the structure, Matthew Kubik stated that the Achilles heel in the Sears Tower are the 8 floors underground and without people, these floors are filled with water. The show continues that the flooding from the Chicago River weakens the lower interior columns supporting the building. Matthew Kubik continue saying that it reach a point where it simply falls all at one time into one giant, heaping mass of twisted metal, concrete, and glass. This cause the Sears Tower to collapse from the skyline, crushing all the nearby buildings to the ground on a solid impact and a cascade of broken wreckage.
Gallery[]
Series
Official Concept
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