Sears Tower

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.

History[]

The Sears Tower was finished in 1973 as the headquarters for Sears. Work commenced on the building in August of 1970. It was designed by Bruce Graham and Fazlur Rahman Khan, and it was built with a "bundled tube" design, supposedly meant to mimic a cluster of cigarettes being pulled out of its pack. When it was finished, it was the world's tallest building, with news coverage marveling at its unique design and height. It held that title for 25 years.

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 mentioned and introduced in 1 day after people along with the John Hancock Center.

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 freeze-thaw cycles and the freezing winter storm off Lake Michigan violently batter the hulking structure. This cause some of the steel plates to peel off the exterior building and crashing into the streets below.

The wires break and the elevator freefalls.

In 200 years after people, Decades of ferocious weather have battered the Sears Tower into a hollowed out, honeycomb husk, with yet more of the remaining windows falling out. The episode expedites that inside of the tower were the 104 separate lifts within multiple shafts that ends at different levels of the building. While the cables rust and snap, the lift's brakes continue to work, until they too eventually corrode and finally give way causing the lifts to plummet down. Matthew Kubik stated that the 104 elevators comes down the shafts at different times, blasting through the floors, cutting through the building, and dragging down the floors around them. The episode mentions that 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, generating more than 1 and a half million pounds of force on its impact.

Its demise is revealed that while the lifts drop are not enough to topple the structure, its the 114 pilings driven into it that holds up the structure beneath the bedrock that could topple it, Matthew Kubik stated that the 8 floors underground of the Sears Tower are its Achilles heel and without people, the floors will be filled with water. The episode continues that the flooding from the Chicago River weakens the lower interior columns supporting the building. Matthew Kubik continue saying that it could reach a point where it simply falls all at once. The weakening of the underground floors cause the Sears Tower to collapse from the skyline, crushing any the nearby buildings in its path to the ground on a solid impact and a cascade of broken wreckage.

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Official Concept