The episode predicts how the gambling meccas of mankind from Las Vegas to Atlantic City that will deteriorate without people. The desert conquers Las Vegas and its famous casinos from the Stratosphere Tower to the Luxor Las Vegas could crumble to dust. Atlantic City fell victim to the repeated waves of hurricanes that break off its boardwalk and the casinos will be washed away. The episode also examines Americana Amusement Park, which closed its gates in 2002 after the park fell on hard times.
Plot[]
Prologue[]
One of the most popular vices for man is to play the odds. In the time of humans, the streets of gambling meccas were lined with outrageous spectacles and tributes to the great civilizations of the world, but the cities are built in hostile environment. Las Vegas springs from a barren desert while Atlantic City is perched on a storm-battered coast. The final bets have been placed in either cities that might or not beat the odds.
1 Day After People[]
The casinos in Las Vegas are empty, except for one that still draws a crowd. In the time of humans, the Madame Tussauds Las Vegas immortalized celebrities and dignitaries in wax with each figure based on as many as 150 measurements. The process is done by melted wax pouring into the plaster molds where it hardened into its final form with hair being placed strand by strand. Without people, the works in progress will never be finished. In Las Vegas alone, more than 100 completed was figures are displayed in a 30,000 square foot museum with the temperature is set at an ideal 70 degrees.
2 Days After People[]
Power started to fail along the Las Vegas strip and a rat pack is prowling the streets. In the time of humans, rats have been a problem in neighborhoods around Las Vegas since the 1990s and experts believe that they came from palm trees which are shipped in to beautify hotels and housing developments. After people, rats find their way into the city's casinos in search for food rather than rolling the dice.
More than 2,000 miles away in Atlantic City, the only creatures strolling down the boardwalk are cats. 18 colonies of feral cats lived under the boardwalk in the time of humans and human volunteers put out food for them on a daily basis. Without people, the future of the 140 felines is uncertain.
The Atlantic City Boardwalk might beat the odds. Originally built in 1870, it let Atlantic City to become the first beachside boardwalk in the United States which is made of 216,000 planks of wood and run for over 4 miles. The earliest boardwalk was made of cedar but the wood is fragile and have to be dismantled and put into storage every winter to keep it out of the elements. The modern boardwalk are much tougher by a South American hardwood called Ipe or Brazilian Walnut that replaced many sections of the boardwalk beginning in the 1990. It is naturally resistant to insects, rot, and mold & it is one of the world's densest woods with fibers that packed tightly, tests shown it has the same fire-rating as concrete. In June of 2007, a fire that started under the boardwalk tore through local businesses with sections of it were destroyed, but those parts are made of pine, the hardwood wasn't damage.
3 Days After People[]
Inside the Madame Tussauds Las Vegas, the waxes still stare out at the empty hallways. When power goes out, emergency lighting keeps the figures illuminated in the windowless galleries, but in the museum's utility rooms, the exhaust fans slow to a halt. The air conditioning then later cuts out, and temperature begins to rise. Kurt Moseley stated that inside the building, the upper floors compress the heat and will be like an oven. He continues that the wax figures will start to droop, sweat, and melt. Beeswax, the main component of the wax figures, begins melting at 115 degrees. The wax figures melts including Madonna, whom stand no chance even against the odds and within days the material girl dematerializes.
While the figure of Madonna melts, 6,000 miles away in Buenos Aires, the body of a famous lady Madonna played in the movies remains surprisingly intact. When Argentine First Lady Evita Perón died in 1952, a doctor mummified her body by a process that included dipping her body several times into a solution that left a plastic-like film on her skin and the doctor assured Evita's husband that the body would never decompose. Evita rests in a tomb 20 feet underground and it is said to be able to withstand a nuclear attack. Unlike Madonna's wax figure, Evita is preserved as a living doll for many years to come.
1 Week After People[]
The streets of Las Vegas, where 37 and a half million people once visited every year, are empty. Looming over the scene of desolation is the Stratosphere Tower. Part of a hotel complex, it's the tallest free standing observation tower in the United States. At 1,149 feet, it is taller than the Space Needle and the Eiffel Tower. The most distinctive features are the highest amusement rides in the world which includes one that dangled visitors 64 feet over the edge of the tower on a mechanical arm. After people, the screams of thrill-seekers no longer echo across the Las Vegas valley.
In the time of humans, many of the iconic hotels in Las Vegas were demolished in seconds at the hands of man, clearing the way for bigger and more eccentric structures. After people, nature act more slowly, with no less violence.
2 Weeks After People[]
In Las Vegas, the flashing lights and deafening clamor of slot machines in the casinos fall silent and dark.
Although there are no humans to exterminate the rats, it has plenty to fear, the episode shows the dog before it reveal it is a rat terrier. The breed was originally developed in the 1800s to hunt vermin and were better than most cats at catching small rodents. It is said that in the time of humans, President Teddy Roosevelt have used one of these dogs to eliminate rats from the White House. Patti Wright explains that once rat terrier got out, they start to sniff around and follows the mice. She continues that while there are rats in the Las Vegas area, there are lizards and variety of other kinds of species that were small that the dogs have ability to capture.
In Atlantic City, the ocean continues to pound against the famous Steel Pier, ever as it has since 1888. It is nearly as long as the Stratosphere Tower tall, the attraction once hosted entertainers from W.C. Fields to Frank Sinatra, and hosted the Miss America pageant. It was rebuilt in 1993 and the concrete supports are in good shape for a moment.
1 Month After People[]
Some gambling meccas have been fertile ground for strange architecture. Unlike skyscrapers and monuments, the bizarre structures were built to draw in customers, not to stand for tomorrow. Near Atlantic City, the strangest of them all is Lucy the Margate Elephant. It was designed to attract investors to what was then an undeveloped stretch of sand and the 65 foot tall pachyderm was completed in 1882, a year before the Brooklyn Bridge.
However it is hardly an engineering marvel, the fragile skeleton had to be rebuilt in 1973 at a cost of $124,000, lasting into the 21st century was a miracle. Richard Helfrant stated that the exterior shell is made up of wood covered with a tin sheathing. He continues that being 100 feet away from the Atlantic Ocean, the structure requires constant maintenance where it needs to be stripped and painted every three years at a cost around $65,000 and rotted wood and tin panels were continue to replaced. The last time Lucy was painted is in 2002, by 2009, the deterioration was clear. It rains every 3 or 4 days in Atlantic City on average, with winter time bringing snow and ice. Every time Lucy's future was threatened, concerned humans stepped in to save her. But after people, she's on her own.
Visiting Americana Amusement Park, it is a future that the story is already being told. Glen Prater Jr., along with Vicki Berni and Jerry Couch, visits the park and explain its history and the progress of nature. It's history is started when its drawing daily crowds of up to 10,000 people. Vicki Berni explains the park in its heyday was beautiful and had a lot of vibrant colors, life, and excitement but was sadden to see its ghost town state. The park fell on hard times, closing its gates in 2002, 80 years after it first opened.
Few short years have let the wood rots, motors, bearings, and metal components corrode and gaping cracks permeate the park. Glen Prater Jr. stated that the annual freeze-thaw cycle occurs in the Ohio Valley have cause it to enlarge the cracks. The amusement park holds some clues as to what will happen to the colorful spectacles of Las Vegas and Atlantic City, and like all amusement parks, it once distinguished by its bright colors. However, the protective paint steadily degrades beneath the sun's ultraviolet assault. Glen Prater Jr. stated the entrance used to look like pastel colors but its much more vibrant. The sunlight dims the paint on an atomic level, combining the color pigments resulting as fade. Glen Prater Jr. stated the loss of pigment and loss of volatiles within paint causes it to loss its elasticity, making it to expand and contract with the material where structural damage occurs. Without humans, the first layer of defense is gone and at its current rate, the Americana soon become unrecognizable. Glen Prater Jr. stated there is no fixed lifetime for the rides and in theory would last forever if they're inspected and repaired. But the inspection is long overdue and rides are beyond repair, including the Screechin' Eagle. Built with 63,000 board of feet of wood, it is the main attraction. What was once considered one of the best wooden rollercoasters in the United States is plunging towards complete collapse, but rotting wood is not the immediate enemy, instead its the coaster's support beams, made of chemically treated wood, which can resist rotting for several more years. A series of guywires provides tension to the tallest section of the track. Glen Prater Jr. stated that the ropes are poised for failure already and the weakest link on the rollercoaster is the fasteners, and when the nails comes out, it will permit the vertical members to undergo buckling collapse, taking at least one push to start the domino effect. With enough nails and guywires loosened, a stiff wind cause a collapse in the coaster's upper reaches. The visitation ends that in time, every structure in the park will become a heap of rubble with Jerry Couch explaining within 10 years, the park would start deteriorating so bad that the buildings start to fall down, rust in the steel and maintenance on all the equipment start to deteriorate, and concrete would be overgrown and pushed by plants, and within 20 years, the park would be unrecognizable.
2 Years After People[]
At Las Vegas, the climate of Mojave Desert starts to produce a new kind of display, the parched desert reasserts itself. Ray Saumure stated that they like to say "water is life" in the Mojave. The city was lush with green gardens in the time of humans and were fed by a water system holding early 700 million gallons in reservoir tanks scattered throughout the valley. Its primary water source, Lake Mead, is 25 miles away, and without electric pumps, the water is unable to reach the city. Las Vegas only rains 4 and a half inches per year and little will grow naturally besides the scrub of the Mojave Desert.
3 miles from the strip, a one-time oasis stands as a natural reminder of the city's lush past. The Spring's Preserve Museum was built on the site where artesian spring were discovered in 1829, where it made possible for people to settle. Las Vegas in fact means "The Meadows", but the wells dug to tap the underground water have long gone dry. However, inside the visitor's center, the voices of man still echo in the halls. The museum's exhibits don't get the electricity from the municipal grid, instead they were powered by the sun from 2,200 solar panels which covers the parking lots, generating 409 kilowatts of electricity. The recorded narrations in the museum may be the last human voices heard in Vegas.
5 Years After People[]
In Atlantic City, the waterfront casinos were breaking in by the city's feral cat, where it has found a new home. Ray Saumure explains that the interesting about cats is that don't tolerate others of their kind and over time would set up a hierarchy and occupy the buildings.
The casinos are dark, ghastly tombs. Cobwebs shroud the slot machines where jackpots will never be claimed. Humidity from the outside encourages rust where the thick paper playing cards have curled and grown moldy in the dampness. The durable plaster poker chips however are unharmed but are covered with grime formed of dust and moisture. Bats also find a place to live. In the time of humans, New Jersey is home to nine species of bats, and most of the bats found homes in abandoned mine and tunnels to avoid human contact, like the Hibernia mine, where thousands congregated every fall and winter. 5 years after people, every casino is a potential bat cave. Ray Saumure stated that some of the buildings will end up being roosts and some species of bats are limited only by the size of the cave they live and in this case, a very large building.
10 Years After People[]
The voice of man begins to strain. The solar cells in the parking lot of the Springs Reserve Museum have kept the facility power on for a decade but in order to operate efficiently, the panels need to be cleaned regularly. Steven S. Ross stated that while solar cells are great, they won't last forever. He continues without people, the solar cells fall prey to dust and debris and would degrade seven or eight percent a year meaning after 10 years, it will lost more than half their power. The solar cells fail, and as the voltage dips, the Springs Reserve Museum lights begun to dim and the voice of man is silenced.
15 Years After People[]
Down the coast from Atlantic City, Lucy the Margate Elephant is on her last legs. Richard Helfant stated after people, the first thing that will happen to Lucy is her outer skin begin to fail and each piece of tin will eventually start to peel off and fall to the ground. He continues that eventually, one storm will weaken one leg and when the leg goes, the rest of Lucy fall to the ground.
50 Years After People[]
The Steel Pier is turning into a skeleton. In the time of humans, the old Garden Pier were damaged during the hurricane of 1944, causing the buildings to be demolished and the pier's foundations never repaired. The Steel Pier caissons is built of reinforced concrete, but it is not strong enough to withstand the constant assault of the ocean. John Feairheller stated that the pier that extend into the ocean are already subject to the constant wearing away by the ocean. He continues that the water has sand as well as boards and other debris, making the sand blasting the structure and within 50 years the structure will be gone.
In Las Vegas, a city known for giving second chances, a former start is making a surprise return, simply water. Rain has continued to fall in the surrounding mountains, making the water to flow down to the Las Vegas valley where it permeates a porous layer below denser rock at the surface. Ray Saumure stated after 50 years, water will return to the valley. He then shows an old well that was built in the early 20th century and stated that because of groundwater pumping, the soil sank down to five feet. He continues after 50 years when the water return, little holes like the one he show will make the water comes out. The reappearance of water in Las Vegas gradually alter the landscape.
Back at Atlantic City, change comes suddenly with violence as a hurricane is on its way up the coast toward Atlantic City. John Feairheller thinks a big one coming in the next hundred years. At the Atlantic City Boardwalk, much of it is already buried under sand, but in the exposed sections, wind buffets the durable South American hardwood that survived the years intact. The corroded metal tie-downs weaken as the winds increase and the whole sections of the boardwalk are ready to give way. John Feairheller stated that portions of the boardwalk will break up and become battering rams.
The hurricanes let the seawater to flood the buildings, soaking their framework with a heavy solution of salt that remains behind long after the storm end. John Feairheller stated that the salt left behind sucks the water out of the air and the supports that have subject to salt will constantly be re-wetted and corrode faster than the rest of the structure. He continues that the support being subjected to the heaviest loads, it will start to fail, one by one in a progressive failure with the first support fails, nothing happen but after a second and third fall, it will start what appears to be a demolition of a building by explosives but in slow motion because only half of the building will fall, then the middle and finally the other half. One of the casinos, the Atlantic City Hilton, is subjected to it and collapse.
100 Years After People[]
Fine grains of windblown sand are erasing the welcome sign that once greeted visitors to Las Vegas. The blowing sand is actually an unnatural consequences of man's presence. Before Las Vegas was developed, most of the sand was held in place by a hard layer called cryptobiotic crust. It is formed of soil particles held together by microbes, fungi, lichens, and mosses and filaments from photosynthetic cyanobacteria spread out to bind specks of mineral material into tough matrix. The usage of shovels and bulldozers have disrupted the crust and without it, the wind blow the sand around unimpeded. Ray Saumure stated that the wind gusts are powerful in the valley and Las Vegas is well know for its windstorms. He continues that most of the results came from humans moving around the desert by destroying the cryptobiotic crust that takes hundreds of years to come back causing a lot of sand blowing and causes erosion.
Within Las Vegas, the shafts of sunlight make their way into the giant atrium of the Luxor Hotel. When it was built in 1993, it was the tallest building on the strip. 100 years after people, every one of the 28,500 panes in its glass skin is broken but the concrete structure remains thanks to its shape giving a natural stability. Stein Sture explains that pyramids can last for thousands of years and in Las Vegas, it has a simulation of a pyramid. He continues that the building would be the most stable structural systems that humans think of.
While the increasing amount of wind-blowing sand may erode at the Luxor Hotel, other particles of Earth have preserved its ancient Egyptian namesake known as the Temple of Luxor. Originally built 3,400 years ago, the temple stands because it was entombed in the layers of silt deposited each year by the Nile River. The river mud was a blanket, protecting the site not only from wind, earthquakes, and other hazards, but also from damage by vandals and treasure seekers. The Temple of Luxor was largely buried until excavations in the late 19th century.
200 Years After People[]
A desert thunderstorm rumbles in Las Vegas, and because it often gets total annual rainfall of four and a half inches in one or two storms, flash floods are common. Ray Saumure stated there are two ways to die in the Mojave, die of thirst or die of drowning. For the past 200 years, flood waters have rushed past the Las Vegas Sign that rust started spreading into its support beam. Another weather hazard then comes into play with the wind blowing up to 90 miles per hour and the powerful gust catches the old greeting sign like a sail. It torques the weakened supports to the breaking point causing the sign to fall flat on the empty crumbling roadway.
300 Years After People[]
While the skylines of most cities are stripped of their iconic towers, Las Vegas still have some surprises. Seen from the distance, the desert has preserved much of the familiar skyline, but the artesian water that began bubbling to the surface 250 years ago is bringing new life to the ruins in the desert. Ray Saumure stated that when water returns, the habitat would look like the area they're in with vegetation growing around and scattered throughout the valley making it lush. Plants like the western honey mesquite grows in clumps along the strip wherever the water happens to flow but the new pockets of groundwater in Las Vegas wreak havoc on building foundations designed for the dry desert terrain.
Nearby, the weakened foundation of the Stratosphere Tower still stands, but it have to endure a thrill ride that is a courtesy of mother nature. While neighboring California is notorious for earthquakes, Nevada experiences thousands of its own tremors every year with faults near Las Vegas that have a potential to unleash events as large as the 1994 Northridge quake that jolted Los Angeles. Bob Raynolds stated that Las Vegas is a seismically active area and the buildings in Las Vegas might last a long due to its relatively dry climate but many of them will be shaken down. Richard Gutkowski explains that there is a potential failure of a tower by toppling if one of the corner of the tower is lost at its base and tilted over, it could have the Leaning Tower of Pisa effect. A violent quake lashes the Stratosphere Tower back and forth like a whip, causing the support to fail and the fall is agonizingly slow. The big observation pod then hits the ground at 150 miles per hour and the entire tower smashing in a cloud of debris. A blanket of dust then hangs over the city's remains and a place once called The Meadows is just a pile of rubble.
1,000 Years After People[]
The long-term fates on the gambling meccas of Atlantic City and Las Vegas are not based on chance, but on the inevitable forces of nature. Steven S. Ross stated that in a thousand years, even a trained eye would have trouble recognizing that there is a city in the Las Vegas valley. 1,000 years after people have let Las Vegas to become little more than a jagged mound in the desert. Creosote bushes and other rough vegetation have colonized any remnants of buildings remaining under a thousand year layer of desert dust. The vegetation will keep the wind from forming sand dunes that might deeply bury the remains of the city.
20,000 Years After People[]
Subtle changes in Earth's orbit and the tilt of its axis have aligned to return the planet to an Ice Age like it did when man was still a primitive hunter. As ocean water is tied up in the planet's massive ice sheets, sea level drops almost 400 feet. In New Jersey, the entire continental shelf stands above sea level and Atlantic City is surrounded by an inland forest. Steven S. Ross stated if he is standing in Atlantic City during the next Ice Age, he would see a forest like he is standing in and the ocean would be far away.
1 Million Years After People[]
A number of Ice Ages have come & gone and the Nevada desert has gone back to looking much like it did when people gambled in Las Vegas. The city is long eroded away, but a familiar creature reminds that once humans were here, the descendance of camels, once kept at a ranch in Virginia City, 400 miles from Las Vegas. However, with low-growing vegetation as its primary food, it has evolved into a new species similar to the guanacos of South America. Ray Saumure stated that because of the habitat in Las Vegas, a new species of camel will be a little smaller in stature, thicker insulating layer of fur due to the temperature, and be fairly quick.
Though the gambling meccas are all gone, one of man's greatest bets is still in play. It's not a gold coin, but a gold record aboard the Voyager spacecraft. Steven S. Ross questions what will actually last a million years before answering that the bet is the Voyager spacecraft. When the Voyagers were launched in 1977 to explore the Solar System and beyond, each one carried a gold record containing sound, images, and greetings in 55 different languages from Earth. It was intended to inform other intelligent beings of the existence on the third planet from the sun, however interstellar space is not a pure vacuum but filled with widely scattered gas molecules, dust and micrometeoroids.
Epilogue[]
After 300 million miles and a million years, space takes its toll on Voyager. It's still recognizable but in pieces and full of holes, even the gold record is so damaged that there's little chance anyone finds it will be able to play it. Like all of man's great gambles, it proved to be a longshot in life after people.
Transcript[]
Life After People Wiki has a transcript for this episode. To see it, click here.
Credits[]
Flight 33 Productions[]
Executive Producers
Louis C. Tarantino
Douglas J. Cohen
Director
Darryl Rehr
Producer
Darryl Rehr
TBA
Errors[]
The episode doesn't follow the power outage of Las Vegas that occurred in the documentary when the power shut down in Las Vegas in 1 year after people in the aftermath of the invasion of quagga mussel which cause the Hoover Dam turbines to fail. However, it is possibly retcon due to Las Vegas not entirely powered on it, instead it is shared.[1]
One of the blackout scene in Las Vegas used have cars flickering out, despite the fact that the power doesn't connect to the vehicles. Although it is possible that the producers accidentally used the production one instead of the final.
The Voyager spacecrafts speed of 300 million miles after a million years is inaccurate since the Voyagers are travelling 3.3 AU per year at the time of the episode aired.
Several inaccuracies are present within the interior location of Madame Tussaud's, as Madonna is not one of the wax figures present within the Las Vegas location, nor are some of the other figures in their poses of the real life area. [2] The wax figures also don't appear to be melting, but rather having their faces dragged down as if the faces were being edited with Photoshop tools.
Trivia[]
Sin City Meltdown is the second episode where the font in the tile is different, taking the same font from the previous episode Bound and Buried.
Flight 33 sign at the left during the Las Vegas blackout.
It is the first episode where the abandoned locale featured is not align with the timeline when it was first abandoned. (I.E. the park was abandoned for around seven years before being featured, but the time line segment was only in one month. However, as of approximately 2022-2025, the park has now surpassed twenty years of abandonment, lining up with most other sources' mention of the park in the episode/series.)
It is the second episode where the writer is not credited.
Gallery[]
The thumbnail for the episode (El Rancho casino) on History's Offical YouTube Channel.
The thumbnail for the episode (Madonna wax figure) as seen on History.com.
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