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Underground Marvels
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00:01Beneath this picturesque city in northern Italy lies an ancient, unexpected world of tunnels and caves.
00:09Who built this intricate subterranean maze?
00:12And why has it been kept secret until now?
00:16We have an enormous amount of remains of bones.
00:20More than 5,000 pieces have been recovered.
00:23Hundreds of miles away in central England lie the remains of a vast prehistoric cave system with a dark past.
00:32What mysteries still linger below the surface?
00:35Fewer people have been through these passages than have walked on the moon.
00:41And hidden 150 feet below Kansas City, Missouri, an enormous limestone mine has been transformed into a modern-day metropolis.
00:51What new purpose does this underground complex serve?
00:55That was the aha moment that this could be something other than just a mining operation.
01:07Throughout history, life underground has captured our imagination.
01:12It creates a very frightening but also very beautiful experience.
01:17Now, we're taking you further and deeper.
01:21There's all kinds of wild theories about what could be below.
01:23To unearth the mysteries of these underground marvels.
01:39In the scenic Italian region of Umbria, an unprecedented landslide unveiled a hidden world beneath the modern town of Orvieto.
01:52A network of tunnel entrances in the bedrock that spanned the entire city and stretched down 300 feet below.
02:01What were these tunnels that had suddenly appeared?
02:05We are very close to the edge of the cliff.
02:09Who built them?
02:11They were on a natural fortress.
02:13And what do they reveal about the city's subterranean past?
02:19We have drinking cups that were imported from Athens.
02:33In 1978, after the unexpected discovery underneath Orvieto, its residents were taken by surprise.
02:41Over 1200 passageways, grottoes and galleries were unearthed.
02:46Revealing evidence of a long forgotten civilization.
02:50Even today, the tunnels are still being explored.
02:54Archaeologist Claudio Bizzari is currently excavating the tunnel system.
02:59Here we are inside of this amazing site.
03:02It's a huge cave.
03:04Findings proved the tunnels were built in the 5th century BC, predating the Romans.
03:09We have vases, we have tiles, we have animal bones.
03:13We have so many different things that allow us to open a window on the Etruscan city of Orvieto.
03:21Orvieto's beginnings could be traced back over 3,000 years, when the Etruscan civilization controlled this part of Italy.
03:31Ruling for nearly a thousand years, this powerful civilization was driven by commerce.
03:37Their formidable army raided neighboring regions, bringing back valuable goods.
03:43What we now call Orvieto was once a major city-state.
03:49Its name was Velsna, and it was among the 12 important cities that developed in Etruscan.
03:58Defending these cities was of paramount importance.
04:01So they were strategically built on elevated land.
04:05What was then known as Velsna was built on porous volcanic rock called Tuff.
04:10The location is just amazing.
04:12Up on this big huge crag of volcanic rock, which allowed them to control the entire area without any threat
04:21of being conquered.
04:22They were on a natural fortress.
04:25The volcanic rock was a strong building material, capable of supporting the weight of a city, yet soft and easy
04:32to dig through.
04:33But the Tuff did have one weakness.
04:36The volcanic rock doesn't have any spring water facilities.
04:39So they had to find their own way.
04:42The resourceful Etruscans devised a brilliant system for making sure they always had easy access to water.
04:48One were cisterns underneath the houses, which would gather the water when it rained, using the roof that's collected.
04:56The other one was vertical shafts.
05:01The vertical shafts required digging through 300 feet of volcanic tuff.
05:08Vertical shafts are vertical perforation of the entire layer of volcanic rock until they hit into the pliocynic clay, which
05:17is down below.
05:18And being clay, it's impermeable.
05:20So the water stays at that level.
05:24The hand-built cisterns and wells were key to the success of the Etruscans of Velsna.
05:30The constant source of fresh water and the city's high elevation meant that it was able to resist attacks for
05:37centuries.
05:38Yet war did come knocking at their door.
05:41The fledgling Roman state was already the dominant power on the Italian peninsula.
05:46And many other cities had fallen to their might.
05:50General Quintus Fabius Maximus marched his legions on the ancient city.
05:55But it was impregnable.
05:57The unrelenting Roman forces camped out at the foot of the walls, stopping all supplies, and waited for the citizens
06:04to surrender.
06:06These structures, vertical shafts, are the ones that allowed the Etruscans to resist under the siege of the Roman legions.
06:16For two years, the Etruscans lived behind these city walls, surviving on whatever they could grow and their clever water
06:24system.
06:25You cannot resist two years just using rainwater.
06:28So they had to find another way of getting the water resources.
06:32And this is probably how they did it.
06:33On the long sides of this vertical shaft, there are footholds that would have been used to move up and
06:38down without the use of any type of ladder or any kind of structure.
06:44The wells were likely the key to the Etruscans' success.
06:47But after two years of lying in wait, the Romans attacked and broke through.
06:54They had to surrender.
06:55And the entire population of Orvieto lost the great fortress that they had before.
07:00And they were moved to a new location.
07:04Seeing its value as an impenetrable city, Orvieto, destroyed in the battle, was rebuilt by the Romans.
07:13The ingenious underground system was forgotten for hundreds of years, until the Middle Ages, when locals found a way to
07:21bring this subterranean world back to life.
07:25In the Middle Ages, they're reusing some already existing areas, and they're making new ones.
07:32These additions included wells and cisterns, but also cellars, grottos, and galleries.
07:38Some spaces contained kilns, furnaces, and storage structures.
07:43Where we are right now, it's a mill, and they produced olive oil in this area.
07:48Basalt, a volcanic stone, was used to crush the olives.
07:52They would be vertical on these platforms, moved by animal power, and they would reduce the olives into a pulp.
07:59A pulp that was then removed from the milling area, and brought into the press.
08:05And that's where you got the pure olive oil that is so famous.
08:11This oil was very versatile, and had many uses.
08:15It was used for ointments.
08:17It was used, for example, for lighting.
08:19You know, a lot of the lamps were fueled with olive oil.
08:23Then times changed once again.
08:25With the Roman Empire a distant memory, the Holy Roman Empire now ruled the land.
08:33In 1527, Emperor Charles V and Pope Clement VII were locked in a bitter power struggle.
08:41The emperor's forces sacked Rome, and Pope Clement fled the city.
08:45He headed straight for Orvieto, planning to hide out there until the danger passed.
08:51While in exile, he ordered the refurbishment of Orvieto's underground well network.
08:56In the process, increasing the water supply, and adding new wells in case the emperor lay siege to the city.
09:07One of those new wells is famously known as the Well of St. Patrick.
09:12But this isn't your average well.
09:15It was one of the most innovative engineering masterpieces of its time.
09:21Historian Cristina De Angelis has studied this structure extensively.
09:27We are very close to the edge of the cliff.
09:32There was not that much space to dig.
09:35The architect was planning a very special structure for the well.
09:40Two staircases wrapped, one on top of each other, with 248 steps.
09:47Peeking out from the highest part of the cliff, it's a staggering 200 feet deep and 45 feet wide.
09:56At the time of the well's design, the architect engineer Antonio da Sangalo the Younger
10:01modeled it off of the newly constructed Bramante staircase at the Vatican,
10:06which allowed for traffic to flow in two directions.
10:13The dual staircases stacked on top of each other and leading all the way to water level at the bottom,
10:19made using the well more efficient.
10:21One staircase was for descending and the other for ascending.
10:26To collect the water, usually during the past we're using pack animals.
10:32The reason why there are two staircases is because people outside, they can make a kind of line going down
10:40an exit,
10:40not to wait for the animals on the way back.
10:46Antonio da Sangalo cleverly designed the well so that natural light would be cast on the staircases.
10:55He planned a system of 72 windows connected with the ramps.
11:00The big round window on top was giving light to each window around the steps.
11:05In the year he spent in Orvieto, Pope Clement commissioned two wells and four cisterns,
11:11while he sought refuge in the city.
11:13The wells are St. Petrico, where we are at the moment, and the other one Pozzo della Cava.
11:19The location of the remaining two cisterns is a centuries-old mystery.
11:28In 1528, after barely a year of exile in the city, Pope Clement VII returned to Rome.
11:36Orvieto no longer needed to serve as a stronghold, and the tunnels were abandoned for several more centuries.
11:44But in the mid-20th century, conflict was once again at Orvieto's doorstep.
11:50And soon, the subterranean tunnels that once served as ancient water cisterns and olive presses were about to serve an
11:57entirely new purpose.
12:05Beginning with the Etruscan civilization and continuing on through the Renaissance,
12:10the subterranean maze that lies below the Italian town of Orvieto grew to include more than 1,200 interlocking tunnels.
12:19By the mid-20th century, the Orvieto underground evolved yet again.
12:24This time, it was employed by its citizens as a hiding place during World War II while under threat of
12:31British attack.
12:35The people of Orvieto had to find shelter in the underground spaces of the city itself.
12:39This is one of them. You see it has a seat on the sides so people could rest a little
12:43bit.
12:44It has two different entrances. Just in case one of them got bombed, you could exit the other one.
12:48Target, motor transport near Castellana. Each plane in the formation carries two 500-pound bombs and strobs during the run.
13:01After more than 3,000 years, it seemed as though the city, unable to protect itself from the skies, was
13:08facing its darkest hour.
13:10The British commander was approaching from the area of Biterbo. In Orvieto, we had the bishop and the German commander.
13:21Both the Roman Catholic bishop and German commander were united in their appreciation of Orvieto's beauty.
13:28This triggered them both to write to the English commander a request.
13:36Can Orvieto be acknowledged as an open city?
13:41In rare cases, an open city would be declared, which would spare a town from being destroyed.
13:48Fortunately, the English commanders thought that it was a very good idea.
13:52The approaching English troops would wait outside until the German troops would move outside.
13:58And then they would come in. So no destruction on top of the city.
14:05Orvieto's tunnels had once again come to the city's rescue and to the aid of its citizens.
14:14Today, archaeologists continue to excavate these extraordinary tunnels, piecing together the rich and diverse history of this part of Italy.
14:22Here we are now in the deposit for the archaeological materials that came from the cave.
14:28We have drinking cups that were imported from Athens.
14:31This is part of a kylix, which is the drinking cup for the banquet that were used also among the
14:37Etruscans.
14:38And you see two beautifully rendered male figures on the inside of the cup.
14:44We also have the decoration of the roofs of the Etruscan buildings of the 5th century BCE.
14:53You see you have a marvelous decoration, perfectly preserved, on a piece of tile.
14:58And then we have an enormous amount of remains of bones.
15:02More than 5,000 pieces have been recovered.
15:05They gave us the opportunity to understand what kind of diet the Etruscans of that period followed.
15:10Most of them are pigs. A good amount is goat and sheep.
15:17The city of Orvieto has provided historians with some of the most complete timelines of the history of Italy.
15:24And has played host to some of the most pivotal moments.
15:30And all because the Etruscans saw a need to start digging.
15:35Beginning one of the richest city histories anywhere in the world.
15:53Carved into the scenic hills of the Peak District National Park is the largest natural cave entrance in the British
16:00Isles.
16:04Upon entering this eerie subterranean lair, there's evidence of people mining its natural treasures since Roman times.
16:13Within the Peak Cavern are remnants of a once thriving community.
16:18Over a hundred people living within the entrance to the cave.
16:22And clues to a dark past.
16:24This was the biggest criminal hub in the northwest of Great Britain.
16:29Could these deep passages lead to the gates of hell?
16:32This is what gives the cavern its name. The Devil's Arse.
16:38And how many more mysterious passages and chambers lie undiscovered in this underground labyrinth?
16:49Spanning 500 square miles, the Peak District in Central England is home to one of the most spectacular caves in
16:57the world.
17:01We are at the entrance of Peak Cavern, the largest natural cavern entrance in the whole of Great Britain.
17:10Chris Hanley, a local expert, is fascinated by this extraordinary cave system and its legendary origins.
17:17I first came here, probably in my teens, we'd heard of this mysterious place with its devil connotations.
17:25So as we walked up here and saw it's just an absolutely majestic cavernous space.
17:33Before it was called Peak Cavern, the caves here were known as the Devil's Arse because of the sounds that
17:40emanate from within.
17:41The noise is created when we have a lot of surface rain.
17:45This chamber floods way past my head height and as the water recedes back down through that hole,
17:52the cave air comes out and bubbles through the water, which gives a very, very large flatulent sound.
17:59When the wind is right and it's blowing down the gorge, you can actually hear the Devil's Arse flatulence maybe
18:08up to ten miles away.
18:11This is what gives the cavern its name, the Devil's Arse.
18:16It's the end point of 17 tributaries from the surrounding hillsides.
18:22For some, however, the strange noises that came from the depths of the cave weren't a deterrent.
18:29In fact, some locals took advantage of this demonic subterranean sound.
18:34And the further you went into the earth, the closer you were to hell.
18:47In England, located within a steep gorge, is Peak Cavern, also known as the Devil's Arse.
18:54It's famous for its rich history and the myths that surround it.
18:59According to legend, in the 16th century, the cave was a popular meeting spot for local thieves.
19:06In the 1500s, bandits used the Devil's Arse to their advantage.
19:13It would have been the Devil himself making such a noise as to keep anybody away.
19:22The bandits were very clever, and they knew exactly how to play the peasants.
19:28They wore fancy, exotic clothing.
19:32They were masters of close-up magic and palmistry and fortune-telling.
19:37And they had an air of mystery about them.
19:39They led people to believe the Devil was inside this mammoth cavern.
19:45Stories that the further you went into the earth, the closer you were to hell,
19:49worked perfectly to keep them safe from prying eyes.
19:54In the 1500s, this was probably the biggest criminal hub in the northwest of Great Britain.
20:01From the depths of the cavern, the bandits enjoyed the fruits of their ill-gotten gains.
20:07They called this area the gates of hell.
20:10This is the Devil's dining room.
20:12There was an annual beggar's banquet here.
20:15They would have been roasting sheep and hogs and that type of thing.
20:19Plenty of food and drink.
20:22Apparently, one year when they actually did this,
20:24the Devil actually did come up from the cellar into the dining room.
20:29And in return for the hospitality, granted them eternal life.
20:34By the 18th and 19th centuries, the region was a hotbed for lead mining.
20:40And soon, more people began moving in.
20:43You've got over 100 people living and working within the entrance to the cave.
20:49Barry Jarvis is an expert on the area.
20:53In the Castleton areas, literally any hole in the ground was a lead mine.
20:58So, consequently, they needed a lot of rope.
21:02Over 200 lead mines had been opened within 50 miles of Peak Cavern.
21:07And every mine needed huge amounts of rope for hoisting men in and ore out.
21:13Ropes were made out in the fields, which is great on a summer's day.
21:17But when it rains, it starts to rot.
21:19And it's no good for its intended purpose.
21:23Most of the mines were owned by wealthy landowner and aristocrat,
21:26the Duke of Devonshire.
21:28And he came up with the perfect solution.
21:31The Duke allowed the rope makers to move into the cavern entrance
21:34to live and work free of charge, provided at all times there was a master rope maker
21:40and an apprentice on site.
21:43It was a family industry, and the whole family was involved.
21:48They had to build these rope walks.
21:51They had to excavate the entrance to the cave.
21:53And there's one, two, three, four rope walks.
21:57A rope walk is a long, flat area where ropes are wound and braided.
22:02And the cathedral-like space inside Peak Cavern offered shelter from the elements.
22:09Even though the living conditions weren't exactly ideal,
22:12the rope makers made the best use of their new home.
22:15They built cottages, stables, and even an inn.
22:19This is one of the last remaining cottages.
22:23This, unbelievably, is a house that would have been home to eight people.
22:28It's absolutely tiny.
22:31They stayed here for 300 years, even in these conditions.
22:36Everything they needed to make a living was here within the cave.
22:43By the Victorian times, word of the massive caves spread,
22:47and soon they became a tourist attraction for the English elite.
22:52We had the likes of Lord Byron, Daniel Defoe, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
22:57They'd heard stories of the Devil's Cave.
23:00So they would come up the gorge and have a peer in.
23:03And, of course, the rope makers very soon figured out that they could earn extra income
23:08by taking these rich people further into the cavern.
23:15Yet some visitors required a little more room to navigate these narrow spaces,
23:19and the locals were willing to make accommodations for special guests.
23:24In fact, in 1880, the caverns were renamed to appeal to their most famous visitor yet,
23:30Her Majesty Queen Victoria.
23:32Henceforth it was known as Peak Cavern, and the locals went out of their way to make sure she had
23:38a comfortable trip.
23:40Queen Victoria was a rather large monarch, so there was no way she could fit through that hole in a
23:47little lead mining boat.
23:48So the lead miners very generously mined this bit of the passage out for her.
23:56And that's how it gets its name, Queen Victoria's Passage.
24:02Queen Victoria's Passage was not the only man-made tunnel in this cavern system.
24:08Given the extensive natural resources in the area,
24:12miners were often excavating the hard limestone
24:16in search of new underground riches.
24:29In 1770, after lead mining around Peak Caverns proved to be lucrative,
24:35its owners came across an ambitious new opportunity.
24:40Allowing miners to access fresh seams of lead,
24:43the Speedwell tunnel was created about a mile away by redirecting underground rivers
24:48and extending the passageways that ran below Peak Cavern.
24:53So we're now in Speedwell Cavern, which is an old 18th century lead mine.
24:59John Harrison's grandfather bought Speedwell in the 1930s,
25:03and it's been owned by his family ever since.
25:10So the rock that the mine is driven through is limestone, carboniferous limestone,
25:15which means it's about 340, 350 million years old.
25:21It's incredibly hard, and they were using black gunpowder to blast through it,
25:26driving shot holes with crowbars and sledgehammers.
25:30Nothing was automated.
25:34Blasting a tunnel 500 feet underground was an incredible feat of engineering.
25:41Miners were working below the water table,
25:43so torrents of water would often flood the tunnel following a blast.
25:50Faced with the enormous challenge of how to minimize the high water pressure,
25:54the miners came up with an ingenious solution that worked to their advantage.
25:58They created a canal way on which boats could transport the heavy loads out of the mine.
26:06They're standing in the bottomless pit chamber.
26:09It's a huge vertical chamber. The top of it is right up there, 90 metres or so above our heads.
26:15This is entirely natural, formed by the action of water dissolving out the softer minerals.
26:22So we have limestone on either side, but in the middle, a vertical vein of fluor spar and originally lead
26:30that you can trace right the way around the chamber.
26:33But the path ahead of them was treacherous.
26:37A massive 98 foot drop to an underground lake.
26:43So the miners built this platform and originally built it as an aqueduct
26:47so the boats could continue their journey straight across unhindered
26:52to enable them to continue into the far reaches of the mine.
27:01Yet today, the underground labyrinth serves a much different purpose.
27:05For me, this is where it gets interesting. The mains lighting stops and we do some real caving.
27:19And we're into the wild cave.
27:26Originally, this area was a coral reef. And there is a fossil in the coral.
27:33This is where it comes from. These muddy puddles are known as the wallows.
27:49This is the tube. This passage was formed when it was completely underwater.
27:56So underwater passages tend to be circular. This is the main streamway for peak cavern with more or less vertical
28:08walls.
28:12Mark and his fellow cavers are discovering new passages all the time.
28:16In the neighboring speedwell system, we've uncovered 80 meters of new passage.
28:23Fewer people have been through these passages than have walked on the moon.
28:27digging it out by hand and moving the mud away.
28:31There's likely to be miles of new passage in there.
28:37Despite being located deep below the peak district,
28:40this massive subterranean system has shaped the lives of those above ground for centuries.
28:47Intrigued by its mysteries, cavers like Mark continue to believe
28:51these subterranean passages will lead to more new discoveries.
29:06In the near future, Kansas City is hiding a secret.
29:13In underground caves left behind by years of limestone mining is the site of a one-of-a-kind complex.
29:21From movie reels and coffee beans to high-tech data storage,
29:26this is the site of a one-of-a-kind complex.
29:26This 55 million square foot underground fortress is an economic hub.
29:31Mother nature built our ceilings and built our floors.
29:35Then we divide them and create unique spaces.
29:39How did engineers convert this abandoned mine into a massive subterranean metropolis?
29:44This is essentially the mine.
29:46This is what it looks like before we do anything.
29:48What is life like for hundreds of people working beneath the surface?
29:53What's awesome is the underground allows for climate control.
29:58And what does the future hold for this sprawling subterranean city?
30:08Hidden from view, hundreds of people are escaping city life and heading for the hills.
30:13Inside the hills, that is.
30:16In 1945, miners began excavating a 270-million-year-old limestone deposit called Bethany Falls,
30:24leaving behind an underground void.
30:27Structural engineer Mike Bell now oversees the development and management of this space.
30:33Right here, you can see what the original limestone looks like before we paint it.
30:38So the strata we're in here was about 270 million years ago.
30:42So here's the limestone.
30:44This is the shale.
30:45And then the middle creek is the next ledge of limestone.
30:48So it goes Bethany Falls, shale, middle creek.
30:51And then there's another shale level.
30:53And then it just keeps kind of going from there.
30:56That'll all get painted white, pillar that is.
30:59And then over here, we've got, this is another 200,000 square feet that we'll build out.
31:05So right now, we're excavating the shale.
31:08We're going to let the underground kind of what we call breathe.
31:11It just kind of adjusts, got to reshift the stresses and the pressures from above.
31:17With the heavy lifting already completed by the miners, developers determined that underground construction would be less expensive than erecting
31:25a normal industrial building on the surface.
31:27The mining process conveniently left 25-foot square pillars about 40 feet apart.
31:34An ideal layout for new office space.
31:39And early on, you can see pillars were random in fashion.
31:43And then there became the point in time, and you can see a semicircular shape right here.
31:48That was the a-ha moment that this could be something other than just a mining operation.
31:52We then changed the mining style from a random pillar method to a standard grid, what we call the rumen
31:58pillar method.
31:59Every 65 feet, we put a pillar 25 feet wide by 25 feet wide, and it goes for two miles.
32:06Since the first tenants moved in, the underground business complex has grown in more ways than originally anticipated.
32:20In Kansas City, Missouri, a vast limestone mine is being put to new use.
32:27Okay, right now we're walking through Subtropolis, a brand new building that we're getting ready to lease to tenants.
32:35Aura Reynolds oversees all aspects of development here.
32:39The way we build a building is we build it by rooms.
32:42So you've got four pillars.
32:44They're 25-foot roughly square, and you have 40 feet in between.
32:49But you've got the dock doors, you've got drive-in doors.
32:52It's really just like a surface building turned on its side.
32:57Mother Nature built our ceilings and built our floors.
33:00Then we have pillars, and all we need to do is divide them and create unique spaces.
33:10While life underground may sound limiting, people have found many ways to customize the space to their needs.
33:17Inside this high-volume printing company are several 100-foot-long industrial printing presses running 24 hours a day, 7
33:26days a week.
33:28For this company, the constant low humidity is a game-changer.
33:33This is an eight-color 40-inch offset press, so it will lay down four colors, dry the ink, turn
33:40the sheet over, lay down four more colors, and produce some of the highest quality print you can ever see.
33:48So one of the nice things about being in the underground is we can control the humidity easily.
33:54Paper is like a sponge, so it allows us to keep the right temperature, the right humidity, so that we
34:02get great ink adhesion as we're printing.
34:05For work normally done outdoors, one of the benefits of operating in a controlled environment is the ability to conduct
34:13business rain or shine, a crucial factor for this vehicle upfitting company.
34:20If we were outside right now, and we needed to work on these vans, we would have to warm them
34:28up, let them thaw, then bring them into the facility, and they're still going to have ice and snow on
34:33them, so then you have a safety hazard because you've got wet floors, so this is ideal for us.
34:41What companies quickly learned is the temperature underground doesn't vary.
34:45The temperature in this room is somewhere around 70 degrees, 55% relative humidity.
34:54That's the ideal storage temperature for green coffee.
34:57This food distributor has benefited from the stable climate for more than 20 years.
35:03We have well over 100,000 square feet of unroasted coffee.
35:07We've got coffee from all over the world, Brazil, Colombia, Peru, Ethiopia.
35:16In these temperature conditions, it doesn't degradate at all.
35:21And then right through these doors is a cooler built into the cave.
35:28It's in the huge cooler unit that the advantages of being underground really become clear.
35:34Once the evaporators cool the rocks, it takes much less energy to keep the space cold.
35:44I mean, once these rocks get to a temperature, it just, you know, it kind of radiates and takes less
35:50energy.
35:52The energy savings in the underground for the coolers could be as much as 50%.
36:01The stable temperature isn't just ideal for storing food.
36:05It's also perfect for motion picture archiving.
36:09We are a record storage company.
36:12The movie industry is our crown jewel.
36:15We archive for them for many, many years.
36:20We've got about 200,000 different titles and reels here in Kansas City.
36:27Being underground here helps us to store the material.
36:33We save a lot of energy.
36:35Because of the stable temperature, we don't have to air condition or heat.
36:41I will say, you know, when you're shutting down at the end of the night and you shut down all
36:45the lights, it's really dark.
36:47So you can't even see the hand in front of your face.
36:50It is pretty creepy walking down the aisles, you know, exiting the building alone, you know, and hear those noises
36:56in the background.
36:57But, you know, I've never seen anything move.
37:00So that's a positive thing.
37:05But regardless of whether you're above or below ground, one industry requires the highest level of security.
37:12We host the most sensitive data, the most mission critical applications and workloads for highly regulated organizations in our regions.
37:30Deep under Kansas City lies a vast underground metropolis that hides a hub of commerce.
37:38Some companies here require high security and conducting business inside a mountain is about as safe as you can get.
37:46This data security company has very strict requirements for their office space.
37:51We host the most sensitive data, the most mission critical applications and workloads for highly regulated organizations in our regions.
38:02These cages also go under floor, so no one can climb under the floor and up.
38:08Cameras, they're motion activated.
38:11For a company whose business is to keep data protected, a former limestone mine is the perfect place for their
38:18headquarters.
38:19So underground gives us three key benefits.
38:22One is that the environmentals are very consistent and they're much easier to control.
38:26Things like data center, temperature, humidity, those are very important things to kind of keep in check.
38:32Secondly, we're protected from nature, the natural hazardous kind of events like tornadoes,
38:38which allows us to keep our customers' mission critical workloads up more often.
38:43On more than one occasion, living in the Midwest, there's been, you know, the tornado warnings even sitting right on
38:49top of us.
38:50Yet we're down here not really worried about it. In fact, this is the place we go.
38:55For all the merits of the vast underground space, it, like any other space, requires maintenance in order to remain
39:02functional.
39:03The pillars over time, concrete cracks. It's just, it's a material that contracts over time.
39:11We'll actually rip the shotcrete off and redo it, put new mesh up, put new rebar, then paint it.
39:19The maintenance of the facility is important, but not as critical as making sure the whole structure doesn't collapse.
39:27A team meticulously monitors every fraction of an inch of movement in the bedrock.
39:33I'm measuring a floor-to-ceiling point. I have over 400. I measure every month.
39:38It takes about a week to do it, and I'm using an extensometer pole that measures in a thousandth of
39:45an inch.
39:46Every point has its own setting recorded in the book. I look in the book to see what the setting
39:50is.
39:51Then I do that setting. So, the difference between what I recorded last time is one one-thousandth of an
39:59inch.
40:01So, hardly anything. So, which is what we want to see.
40:06Then we do this every month to monitor their stability of the underground.
40:10One of the things that's very important in the underground is safety.
40:14So, we take it very seriously, and that's why we take so much time every month to make sure everybody's
40:19safe under here.
40:20The mine is rock solid.
40:25And at the far end, beyond the refurbishment and the lights, are the freshly excavated limestone caverns.
40:36This is essentially the mine. This is what it looks like before we do anything.
40:40I mean, the amazing thing is, is this was all under the ocean at one point.
40:47This right here is the center of the room. And every room is marked on a grid.
40:54This is 82 north, 1 east. So, you know exactly the room that you're in based upon the center of
41:02the room.
41:03And every room has that. So, as you go along, if you do get lost, take the flashlight, look above
41:08the center of the room, you'll get the grid and know exactly where you're at.
41:14It would take you about 1.1 miles to reach the end from where we're standing right now.
41:19We've built out about 6.7 million square feet of industrial space.
41:26So, we got another mile to go. Another 7 million square feet.
41:30When you go to the way back, if you didn't have that light, it's dark.
41:37It's time to head back to 8600.
41:41With 10% of Kansas City's industrial operations now underground, could this subterranean city pave the way for a worldwide
41:52shift towards working below the surface?
41:56Only time will tell.
42:09To take a look at 4600 when working below the room's office like this.
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