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Do not try anything you are about to see at home.

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On this episode of Mythbusters, Adam and Jamie bet the house on a hurricane survival tale.

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Sweet home.

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For a little while.

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It's wind versus windows.

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Things are going to start to get a little crazy in here.

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As they unleash the awesome hour of nature at its deadliest.

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We are so not in Kansas anymore.

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Meantime, Carrie Grant and Tori chill out with two myths about liquid nitrogen.

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That is terrifying.

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First, it's the villainous movie myth of the quick freeze face that shatters like ice.

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Why did I lose?

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Why did I lose?

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Then, could a truckload of LN2 really ruin Christmas?

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Minus 200.

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I can't even comprehend that.

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Who are the Mythbusters?

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Adam Savage.

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That's the liquid data.

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And Jamie Heineman.

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Jamie wants a big home.

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Between them more than 30 years of special effects experience.

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Joining them, Tori Bellachy.

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We're popping popcorn with lasers.

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Grant Imahara.

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And Carrie Byron.

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Look mom, no hands.

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They don't just tell the myths.

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Come scare us.

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They put them to the test.

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First up, a myth fit to blow the house down.

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Here's the myth.

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You've got a nice house, it's near the ocean.

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Are hurricanes coming?

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What do you do?

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Does this have to do with opening windows?

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Bingo.

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The theory is that if you leave the windows open, it will allow the wind to pass cleanly through the house,

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creating less structural damage than if you close the windows.

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Really?

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Hurricanes are one of the most powerful forces in nature.

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Destroying thousands of homes each year.

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And where there's catastrophe, there's often controversy.

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Some say that to prevent your home being blown to bits, it's best to open all your windows.

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And some say to leave them closed.

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What are we going to do?

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Well, before we even get to the hurricane part,

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I'm actually really interested in examining the structural pressures on a house,

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let's say in scale.

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In a wind tunnel, we make a little house, windows open, closed,

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try the different configurations and see what we get.

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Sounds like a good place to start.

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I thought so.

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Flash forward a day to NASA's Ames Research Center, just across the bay from M5.

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Senior research engineer Kurt Lawn has kindly offered his miniature wind tunnel for testing.

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There we go.

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Perfect.

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All right, just bolt it down and we're ready to go.

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But ready to go with what exactly?

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This may look pretty cool, but I assure you that yesterday this was nothing but a big sheet of steel with potential.

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And it didn't take long for that steel to fulfill its potential, transforming into a small-scale house.

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Like most simple homes, it's got four walls, a roof and some windows.

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But this is an engineering marvel.

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All of the walls of the house have a hinge along the bottom, and that allows the wall to flex in and out.

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Now, because we've attached a cylinder inside that's filled with a blue fluid, when the wall moves in or out,

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it pushes that cylinder up or down, which moves this blue fluid in the hose up or down.

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Each wall and the roof is color-coded, so the blue water runs up a clear tube to match a corresponding color on the big board.

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That way, they can see exactly which wall is feeling the force of the wind with windows open or closed.

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This steel box right here is our test platform for monitoring pressures on a house when the windows are open or closed in a windstorm.

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It's got four windows, one on each side, and we can open them by removing any which ones we want.

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Time to test the relative pressures from several hurricane window scenarios, and we'll kick it off with a total lockdown.

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Now, this test is with all windows closed, and this will be our baseline for all the other testing.

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Kurt starts the section, raising the wind speed in an instant to 60 feet per second.

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The tail of the turbulence couldn't be more clear.

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With all windows closed, the front wall bore the brunt of the blast.

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The roof began to lift, and the blue water went wild.

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That's exactly what we'd expect. I think we're good. We can bring it down.

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That's perfect! Let's cut it.

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So they stopped the mini hurricane, resetting the tiny house with all windows open.

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So the myth is that leaving your windows open in a hurricane will result in less structural damage to your house.

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If this myth is true, when we run this test with all the windows of our test house out, we should see a lot less movement of all the sides.

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Once again, Kurt cranks the breeze up to 60 feet per second.

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And the movement, as predicted, is minimal. The walls and the water barely budge.

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That's coming down just to the hair.

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Yeah. A lot less stress with the windows open.

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Yep.

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So, windward side pushed in 8.5 inches, a lot less than last time. The roof pushed up just a tiny bit.

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Everything was less.

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Everything was less with the windows open rather than closed.

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And that's good news for the myth. With all windows open, some of the wind blew clean through the house.

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Less pressure on the walls and roof should mean less damage.

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It turns out that in this test, the least amount of stress on your house will result from you opening all of your windows.

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Hmm.

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Indeed. The small scale tests were great indicators, but we need to see how those pressure changes translate into real damage.

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Adam and Jamie know they'll have to upscale the house and bring on the hurricane.

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At minus 320 degrees Fahrenheit, liquid nitrogen turns the soft and supple, like flowers or ripe fruit, into something brittle enough to shatter.

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Anything that potent attracts its fair share of folklore. And we're testing two of the fables.

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Let's talk about shattering frozen heads. Now, this scene's a little graphic, so I doubt they're going to show it.

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Okay, well how about I describe it instead. During the movie, Jason 10, Jason takes a girl's head, dunks it in liquid nitrogen for 5 seconds,

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and then smashes it against a counter so it shatters into a million pieces just like ice.

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The original scene is too grim to show. So here's a cartoon compromise.

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There's no doubt this would ruin your day, but could a 5 second dunk freeze a warm face so fast it explodes on impact.

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Well, it sounds like our testing is going to come down to two things. First, does organic material with high water content shatter like ice when frozen?

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And second, does it only take 5 seconds to freeze it, or is it even longer?

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Well, I doubt anybody is going to volunteer for this experiment, so we're going to have to make our own heads.

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So why don't we get some real human skulls? We'll make some ballistic gel heads, so that way it's very similar to the water content of a human being.

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Carrie sources the skulls from the bone room. She knows they all have to be small enough to fit inside a mold of her head.

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I think I'll take these three skulls right here.

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Okay.

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So here's the plan for these crash test heads. They'll need the first for an unfrozen control test,

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and the second for that crucial 5 second dip in liquid nitrogen. The third is a just in case backup.

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Normally when we do a head cast, we use alginate, and it takes a short amount of time to set up. This time we're using a silicone that is safe to put on the skin.

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So I'm going to have plenty of time to play with it, and when we're done, we have the mold. We don't have to go and make a cast and make a mold of that.

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I mean, it's like, it's a one shot deal.

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What I'm doing right now is I'm greasing up your face, so that way the silicone doesn't stick to all the little hairs on your face.

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Otherwise, we're basically going to be waxing your entire face.

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Best if Tori stops talking, or Carrie stops listening.

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I'm not nervous. I'm just a little greasy.

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The silicone sludge is ready, and even if his bucket skills are less than perfect,

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Let's acknowledge the massive loss to the world of professional cake frosting.

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Right now I just want to make sure I get an even coat over her entire face, so we get a good impression.

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As Carrie's rolled outside to stiffen up in the sunlight.

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How's that feel? Good. Good.

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Grant starts work on a pneumatic hammer to smash those frozen faces.

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Okay, so here's the idea. Rather than smash the facing of the counter, we bring the counter to the face, hence this wide, flat head on the hammer.

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Now, you might be saying to yourself, oh, all this is overkill, but just imagine.

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If we actually get these faces to freeze, all that soft, squishy flesh could turn into real shrapnel.

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So we're going to use this to perform the test remotely, and we will be safely behind glass shields.

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Okay, tomato at 20 psi in three, two, one.

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Oh, that's perfect speed and perfect power. Good, great. Let's smash some heads.

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But will a five second dump in liquid nitrogen cause a face to smash like frozen fruit?

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Still to come, Adam and Jamie raise the stakes in Florida.

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But next, those frozen heads take a serious bash.

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That looks like it hurt.

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Carrie, Tori and Grant are almost ready to test a morbid movie stunt.

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Can liquid nitrogen really be used to rapidly freeze human flesh so it shatters like ice?

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Grant's built the smash.

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While the others work on a life like mold for the various test heads.

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Carrie's been wrapped, plugged, frosted and baked.

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And now she's done.

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That's good she's laughing.

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But not for long.

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And usually when I've gotten a face casting, you can kind of blow air into the casting and it goes, whoops,

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and then you can pull it off really easily.

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So I blew into the casting and went, and my lips stuck to it.

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Despite Tori's due diligence, some of the silicone is sticking to Carrie's face, pulling on her skin and eyebrows.

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It's like a band-aid, you just gotta rip it off.

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I'm just kidding, I'm kidding, I'm not gonna do that.

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Where less cool heads might panic, Carrie holds it together.

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She knows that if the mask is damaged, they'll have to start over.

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Ready? Here we go.

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Finally, freedom.

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But just as they feared, it comes at a price.

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We got some eyelashes.

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But look at how cool this is.

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That is terrifying.

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We have a silicone mold in your hand.

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Was it worth it?

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I think I might have to ice my face.

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And that simple wish gives rise to a brilliant idea.

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The plan as it stands needs three test heads.

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One unfrozen control, one dunked for five seconds, just like the movie, and a spare.

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But why not smash another head made only from ice?

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This should set the ultimate shatter standard.

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You know, all the years of special effects and mold making, this is probably my first ice sculpture.

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Making an ice head is as simple as filling the mold with water and sticking it in the freezer.

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Alright, so once that freezes, we'll have a Carrie ice head to smash.

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Now for the challenge of building three more lifelike Carrie heads, starting with brains made from dental alginate.

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Yay, more brains.

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So the consistency we're making right now with water to alginate is 78% water, which is the same consistency as the human brain.

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The brains need time to set, so fast forward a few hours to the point where Tori pours the faces by filling the gap between the skull and mask with ballistics gel.

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This too needs time to set, but we don't have to wait around.

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Soon enough they've got three heads fit to fracture and a solid ice control head to kick things off.

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In three, two, one.

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Oh, that looked like it hurt. Nice.

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It sure did, so this is the best they can hope for.

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So that is what a frozen solid head should look like when it gets smashed.

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Now we know.

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I don't even recognize her anymore.

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Alright, should we move on to the ballistics gel head? Cool.

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No offense to Carrie, but this is where things could turn ugly.

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This alternate control test is a head warmed up to normal body temperature.

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Look how creepy this looks.

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Now we need to smash it to see what it looks like unfrozen.

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Once we have that data, we'll be able to compare it to the heads frozen with the liquid nitrogen.

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Three, two, one.

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Oh, she looks hammered.

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Wow, that is a perfect test.

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That just crushed in.

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Yeah, it's just broken up the ballistics gel. It hasn't shattered all over.

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We've tested the two extremes.

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Now it's time to dunk head number two for five short seconds and see how it fares on the shatter spectrum.

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Now what do you guys think is going to happen?

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Personally, I think five seconds isn't long enough to freeze a head.

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You know what? I have a feeling we're going to be shattering these faces.

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I think liquid nitrogen is really effective. Five seconds might be just long enough to pull this off.

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They've built a snug box with foam insulation to hold the cold of the LN2.

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And they'll need to be careful. Dealing with such fearsomely low temperatures, frostbite is a real danger.

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Oh, this is so wrong.

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When you say go, I'll start timing.

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That means long gloves, a full face mask, an apron, and a narrator saying, don't try this at home.

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Whoa! Tell me when.

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Okay.

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Oh my God, look at that! That is so clear.

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Quickly so it doesn't unfreeze.

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Go as quick as I can.

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Grant predicts it won't work, but the others think you can sometimes trust in the movies.

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Okay, pressure it up. 20 psi. Safety's out. Good to go.

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Okay, this is liquid nitrogen exploding head. Ballistics gel done for five seconds in three, two, one.

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Oh!

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Oh, crap.

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Grant was right. A five second freeze was too brief to turn those soft cheeks to shrapnel.

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It definitely did not shatter like ice, but on the other hand, it didn't quite smush like the room temperature head.

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It was somewhere in between. So the freezing definitely had an impact on the impact.

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Well, maybe to replicate the results they had in the movie, we're going to need to freeze it completely through.

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Leave it in a lot longer.

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Yeah, because in the movie, when her face gets hit, I mean, it just shatters.

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So the five second freeze was misleading, but a five minute dunk might make all the difference.

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This is why it's so important people to always have a spare head.

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Whoa. That's impressive.

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This myth, at least in principle, is still up for grabs.

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Okay, that's two minutes.

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That's it. It's only been two minutes. Five minutes is going to be forever.

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So let's cut straight to the big chill.

225
00:17:17,000 --> 00:17:23,000
Whoa. That is the coolest looking thing.

226
00:17:23,000 --> 00:17:24,000
Cut it down.

227
00:17:24,000 --> 00:17:28,000
All right, here we go. In three, two, one.

228
00:17:28,000 --> 00:17:32,000
That looked more like the movie.

229
00:17:32,000 --> 00:17:34,000
That looked just like the movie.

230
00:17:34,000 --> 00:17:35,000
That was a lot better.

231
00:17:35,000 --> 00:17:40,000
Look, it's still frozen. It shattered. That's cool.

232
00:17:40,000 --> 00:17:43,000
That is disgusting.

233
00:17:43,000 --> 00:17:51,000
After a much longer soak, they've at least matched the movie, but they're not ready yet to call this one busted.

234
00:17:51,000 --> 00:17:54,000
We got the face to shatter just like in the movie.

235
00:17:54,000 --> 00:17:57,000
However, we can't bust or confirm this myth yet because let's face it.

236
00:17:57,000 --> 00:18:00,000
That was the blue six gel head, not a real head.

237
00:18:00,000 --> 00:18:03,000
I mean, there's no muscle. There's no skin holding the face together.

238
00:18:03,000 --> 00:18:06,000
We need a more accurate human analog.

239
00:18:06,000 --> 00:18:12,000
And that's not going to be pretty because Tori's thinking pig heads, which will be the ultimate test,

240
00:18:12,000 --> 00:18:14,000
but it's not for the squeamish.

241
00:18:14,000 --> 00:18:15,000
It's even got eyelashes.

242
00:18:15,000 --> 00:18:20,000
After the break, a massive wind machine kicks in to cause some real damage.

243
00:18:20,000 --> 00:18:21,000
That didn't take much.

244
00:18:21,000 --> 00:18:26,000
While the shattered face testing gets all too much for carry.

245
00:18:26,000 --> 00:18:30,000
What did I watch?

246
00:18:31,000 --> 00:18:42,000
Adam and Jamie are testing a myth that might just save your house and your life.

247
00:18:42,000 --> 00:18:47,000
Will opening every window in a hurricane lessen the damage to your home?

248
00:18:47,000 --> 00:18:53,000
Well, at NASA's wind tunnel, the small scale experiments fortified the fable.

249
00:18:53,000 --> 00:18:59,000
When we opened all the windows, we saw in that test specifically the least amount of overall pressure on our structure.

250
00:18:59,000 --> 00:19:01,000
So where does that leave us?

251
00:19:01,000 --> 00:19:07,000
Somehow we need to get from those pressure differentials we saw in the small scale testing to a real world situation

252
00:19:07,000 --> 00:19:11,000
and see what it means in terms of structural damage.

253
00:19:11,000 --> 00:19:15,000
But that leads us right back to where we're going to get a hurricane.

254
00:19:15,000 --> 00:19:19,000
Well, the simple answer to that is Florida.

255
00:19:19,000 --> 00:19:23,000
And it really doesn't matter if it's hurricane season or not.

256
00:19:23,000 --> 00:19:28,000
When you want to investigate the power of hurricane force winds, you can do one of two things.

257
00:19:28,000 --> 00:19:34,000
Either A, get yourself in the middle of a real hurricane, or B, travel to the University of Florida's hurricane research facility,

258
00:19:34,000 --> 00:19:41,000
which is where we are now, where they have the world's largest portable hurricane simulator.

259
00:19:47,000 --> 00:19:53,000
For obvious reasons, this 3,000-horsepower hairdryer is nicknamed Medusa,

260
00:19:53,000 --> 00:19:56,000
after the mythical Greek chick with snakes on her head.

261
00:19:56,000 --> 00:20:03,000
But this modern monster is way more perilous, pumping out a million cubic feet of air a minute.

262
00:20:03,000 --> 00:20:05,000
What exactly do you do with it?

263
00:20:05,000 --> 00:20:10,000
The hurricane simulator is an experimental means to create severe wind and wind-driven rain,

264
00:20:10,000 --> 00:20:14,000
so we can test buildings, utilities, and even the landscaping around your home.

265
00:20:14,000 --> 00:20:16,000
Well, what's on the menu for us today?

266
00:20:16,000 --> 00:20:22,000
We're going to dial up a Category 2 storm with wind speeds in excess of 100 miles per hour.

267
00:20:22,000 --> 00:20:23,000
Wow.

268
00:20:23,000 --> 00:20:30,000
You said it, Jamie. And the guys just can't resist a thrill of first putting their own hides in harm's way.

269
00:20:33,000 --> 00:20:38,000
Have you ever wondered what it would really be like to be in hurricane force winds?

270
00:20:38,000 --> 00:20:43,000
Well, we've all seen news footage of hurricanes when they hit land and so on.

271
00:20:43,000 --> 00:20:50,000
This is 100 miles per hour, and notice how hard it is for us to retain traction on this surface.

272
00:20:50,000 --> 00:20:53,000
You'd be like a tissue cloth in the wind.

273
00:20:53,000 --> 00:20:56,000
Wow. That is awesome.

274
00:20:56,000 --> 00:20:59,000
I was okay, but my suit's starting to come apart.

275
00:21:01,000 --> 00:21:08,000
Before Jamie gets nude for the cause, let's pre-test with a target that's much closer to scale.

276
00:21:09,000 --> 00:21:12,000
Seven years of shooting this show, and they finally got us a trailer.

277
00:21:12,000 --> 00:21:15,000
Yep. Well, let's put it to good use.

278
00:21:15,000 --> 00:21:22,000
The Saphir Simpson Scale predicts major damage to mobile homes in a Category 2 hurricane.

279
00:21:22,000 --> 00:21:24,000
Let's start it up.

280
00:21:26,000 --> 00:21:32,000
Medusa barely gets time to warm up before this caravan turns into trailer trash.

281
00:21:40,000 --> 00:21:42,000
Well, that didn't take much.

282
00:21:43,000 --> 00:21:46,000
I don't even think those things got up to half speed.

283
00:21:46,000 --> 00:21:52,000
This pipe working from hell is more than able to produce the hurricane force winds that we were looking for.

284
00:21:52,000 --> 00:21:59,000
Now, I think it's time that we build a house and put some of these open-closed window myths to a full-size test.

285
00:22:00,000 --> 00:22:14,000
So far, we've matched the movie myth of the shattered face, but it took five minutes to freeze, not five seconds.

286
00:22:14,000 --> 00:22:21,000
To silence the critics, they're retesting with a better human analogue, and Carrie's not comfortable.

287
00:22:21,000 --> 00:22:25,000
It's got muscle and skin and lots of blood.

288
00:22:25,000 --> 00:22:32,000
We're starting out with five seconds, just like the movie, and then if that doesn't work, we're moving on to full freeze.

289
00:22:32,000 --> 00:22:38,000
Whoa! It's like a deep-fried pig, except deep frozen.

290
00:22:38,000 --> 00:22:46,000
Okay, this is liquid nitrogen exploding heads pig head. Five seconds. Call it.

291
00:22:46,000 --> 00:22:50,000
All right, here we go. In three, two, one.

292
00:22:51,000 --> 00:22:52,000
Oh!

293
00:22:52,000 --> 00:22:53,000
Is it bad?

294
00:22:53,000 --> 00:22:55,000
It's not good. It's just not really bad.

295
00:22:55,000 --> 00:22:56,000
Good, you should go check that out.

296
00:22:56,000 --> 00:22:57,000
Hi.

297
00:22:57,000 --> 00:22:58,000
Oh!

298
00:22:58,000 --> 00:23:00,000
Oh, gosh, but no shatter.

299
00:23:00,000 --> 00:23:05,000
Yep, we flattened the face, but it didn't in any way shatter like the one in the movie.

300
00:23:05,000 --> 00:23:06,000
No.

301
00:23:06,000 --> 00:23:12,000
We'd like to show you the whole of the high-speed replay, but trust us, you don't want to see it.

302
00:23:12,000 --> 00:23:14,000
Suffice to say, it didn't shatter.

303
00:23:14,000 --> 00:23:17,000
Do you want to try to leave it in there a little bit longer and see if that's enough to make it shatter?

304
00:23:17,000 --> 00:23:18,000
Absolutely.

305
00:23:18,000 --> 00:23:20,000
I think that's a great idea.

306
00:23:20,000 --> 00:23:26,000
To maximize their chances, the second head marinates for a full 15 minutes.

307
00:23:26,000 --> 00:23:28,000
Oh, that's frozen solid.

308
00:23:28,000 --> 00:23:29,000
Whoa!

309
00:23:29,000 --> 00:23:34,000
Grant pressures up and Carrie dares to take a peek.

310
00:23:34,000 --> 00:23:36,000
Two, one.

311
00:23:36,000 --> 00:23:37,000
Oh!

312
00:23:37,000 --> 00:23:39,000
What did I look? What did I look?

313
00:23:39,000 --> 00:23:40,000
Oh!

314
00:23:40,000 --> 00:23:41,000
What did I look?

315
00:23:41,000 --> 00:23:43,000
You're blitting for punishment.

316
00:23:43,000 --> 00:23:44,000
Oh.

317
00:23:44,000 --> 00:23:45,000
Oh!

318
00:23:45,000 --> 00:23:46,000
Oh!

319
00:23:46,000 --> 00:23:48,000
So what's the verdict?

320
00:23:48,000 --> 00:23:54,000
We froze this head completely solid and smashed it in no shattering happened whatsoever.

321
00:23:54,000 --> 00:23:56,000
Absolutely nothing like the movie.

322
00:23:56,000 --> 00:23:59,000
So I guess this one's busted. Thank God we're done.

323
00:23:59,000 --> 00:24:00,000
Busted.

324
00:24:00,000 --> 00:24:01,000
Busted.

325
00:24:01,000 --> 00:24:08,000
Evil viewers take note. Results of a five-second face freeze might not match your expectations.

326
00:24:08,000 --> 00:24:12,000
I know we still have a whole canister full of liquid nitrogen.

327
00:24:12,000 --> 00:24:14,000
What else can we do?

328
00:24:14,000 --> 00:24:16,000
Let's find out.

329
00:24:16,000 --> 00:24:23,000
Coming up, Adam and Jamie see if a homemade house can survive a Force II hurricane.

330
00:24:23,000 --> 00:24:26,000
Oh, Dorothy, we are so not in Kansas anymore.

331
00:24:29,000 --> 00:24:31,000
Please do not try what we do on the show at home.

332
00:24:31,000 --> 00:24:33,000
We're what you call experts.

333
00:24:33,000 --> 00:24:35,000
It's safer that way.

334
00:24:35,000 --> 00:24:44,000
Jamie and Adam have already risked losing their shirts.

335
00:24:44,000 --> 00:24:46,000
That is awesome!

336
00:24:46,000 --> 00:24:48,000
Then totaled a trailer.

337
00:24:48,000 --> 00:24:50,000
That didn't take much.

338
00:24:50,000 --> 00:24:53,000
To trial this portable mechanical hurricane.

339
00:24:53,000 --> 00:24:56,000
I think we broke part of the toilet.

340
00:24:56,000 --> 00:25:02,000
With a Category 2 wind speed, Medusa simulates a half-strength hurricane.

341
00:25:02,000 --> 00:25:11,000
So we're building a half-sized house to see if it suffers more or less structural damage with the windows open or closed.

342
00:25:11,000 --> 00:25:14,000
It's been a while since your last Amish barn raising, hasn't it?

343
00:25:14,000 --> 00:25:15,000
Yeah.

344
00:25:15,000 --> 00:25:21,000
This prefab cubby house roughly replicates a real home's proportions.

345
00:25:21,000 --> 00:25:23,000
Home sweet home.

346
00:25:23,000 --> 00:25:26,000
Yeah, for a little while.

347
00:25:26,000 --> 00:25:29,000
A half-sized shack gets a quick paint job.

348
00:25:29,000 --> 00:25:32,000
Then Adam rides the rooftop.

349
00:25:32,000 --> 00:25:35,000
I got something stuck in the crack of my butt. Can you see it?

350
00:25:35,000 --> 00:25:41,000
It's not every day you see a house deliberately put in the path of a hurricane.

351
00:25:41,000 --> 00:25:45,000
Oh, Dorothy, we are so not in Kansas anymore.

352
00:25:45,000 --> 00:25:50,000
To assess the potential damage, they'll need to turn this house into a home.

353
00:25:50,000 --> 00:25:51,000
There we go.

354
00:25:51,000 --> 00:25:58,000
Simple furniture and a surrogate victim should be good storm fodder.

355
00:25:58,000 --> 00:26:06,000
Even more essential is a whole bank of expertly installed gauges, measuring the air pressure inside and out.

356
00:26:06,000 --> 00:26:11,000
Well, here's the deal. In a few minutes, a Category 2 storm is going to hit.

357
00:26:11,000 --> 00:26:16,000
The house is going to start to shake. Things are going to start to get a little crazy in here.

358
00:26:16,000 --> 00:26:21,000
The mad hatter briefs Alice as the door mouse puts it all in perspective.

359
00:26:21,000 --> 00:26:25,000
Why is the house this big, you wonder? Why did we choose this scale?

360
00:26:25,000 --> 00:26:30,000
Well, this scale is dictated by the size of the machine behind me.

361
00:26:30,000 --> 00:26:37,000
See, this thing is pretty much the largest of its kind, and it produces a hurricane with the footprint of the cowl you see behind me.

362
00:26:37,000 --> 00:26:45,000
So in order to get accurate hurricane force winds all the way around our model, we built it exactly this large.

363
00:26:45,000 --> 00:26:46,000
Any questions?

364
00:26:47,000 --> 00:26:53,000
No, but it's high time we explain just how a hurricane can wreck your home.

365
00:26:53,000 --> 00:26:56,000
Strong winds over the roof can cause uplift.

366
00:26:56,000 --> 00:27:03,000
While depending on the building, horizontal pressures can cause racking or sliding.

367
00:27:03,000 --> 00:27:09,000
And if the house can't rack or slide, it might just overturn.

368
00:27:09,000 --> 00:27:19,000
Adam and Jamie are now ready to fight out if those pressure differentials they saw in small scale translate to real structural damage in large scale.

369
00:27:19,000 --> 00:27:26,000
They'll start with all windows open, which should subject the house to the least amount of pressure.

370
00:27:26,000 --> 00:27:30,000
Alright, windows open? Windows open. Let's do it!

371
00:27:33,000 --> 00:27:38,000
Mendoza kicks into life and soon starts blowing with a vengeance.

372
00:27:40,000 --> 00:27:44,000
The grass starts to flutter. The stick on shingles are ripped from the roof.

373
00:27:44,000 --> 00:27:51,000
And the drapes are almost blown away as the wind speed approaches then passes 100 miles per hour.

374
00:27:59,000 --> 00:28:05,000
After two minutes, Jamie pulls the plug. As expected with windows open, the house hasn't budged.

375
00:28:07,000 --> 00:28:09,000
Hey, it's not as bad as I thought.

376
00:28:11,000 --> 00:28:12,000
She's still sitting in her chair.

377
00:28:12,000 --> 00:28:18,000
Yeah, one of the plants fell down, one of the candlesticks fell over, but pretty much it's not so bad in here.

378
00:28:18,000 --> 00:28:20,000
Still looks like a tea party to me.

379
00:28:21,000 --> 00:28:26,000
But if the small scale results run true, the next test will be no tea party.

380
00:28:26,000 --> 00:28:30,000
They've repaired the roof and closed the windows.

381
00:28:30,000 --> 00:28:31,000
Alright, you ready?

382
00:28:31,000 --> 00:28:32,000
I'm ready.

383
00:28:32,000 --> 00:28:34,000
Alright, windows closed. Let's turn it on!

384
00:28:34,000 --> 00:28:36,000
Hang on to your hats.

385
00:28:36,000 --> 00:28:43,000
Facing a Force II hurricane at point blank range, this could be the moment our kid home turns into kindling.

386
00:28:45,000 --> 00:28:48,000
Once again, Mendoza cracks up to full speed.

387
00:28:55,000 --> 00:28:58,000
Adam helps out with a huff and a puff.

388
00:28:59,000 --> 00:29:05,000
But against all predictions, the house fails to blow down.

389
00:29:07,000 --> 00:29:12,000
Totally baffled, the boys turn to the data from the pressure gauges.

390
00:29:13,000 --> 00:29:18,000
On our exterior walls, we're almost seeing no difference between the pressure loads acting on the structure between the two tests.

391
00:29:19,000 --> 00:29:20,000
What about the interior?

392
00:29:20,000 --> 00:29:24,000
We're seeing a slight difference, but I think one could probably say that's within the noise.

393
00:29:24,000 --> 00:29:25,000
So it's negligible?

394
00:29:25,000 --> 00:29:31,000
It was negligible. In fact, really there is no positive benefit to keeping your windows open during a hurricane.

395
00:29:31,000 --> 00:29:32,000
Confused?

396
00:29:32,000 --> 00:29:42,000
Here's the thing, in our scale tests, we grossly oversized the windows proportion to the size of the house in order to exaggerate any effects that we might get so that we could clearly see them.

397
00:29:42,000 --> 00:29:52,000
But with this test, with a much more real world proportion between windows to the actual area of the house facing the wind, all those effects seem to disappear.

398
00:29:53,000 --> 00:30:00,000
Technically, that's myth busted, but in the real world, gaol force winds might be the least of your problems.

399
00:30:00,000 --> 00:30:06,000
You know what I'm thinking is, wind is only one of the factors that's going to affect the structural integrity of your house.

400
00:30:06,000 --> 00:30:10,000
I mean, there's also rain and there's also flying debris.

401
00:30:10,000 --> 00:30:11,000
We need to up the ante.

402
00:30:12,000 --> 00:30:15,000
And rest assured, they will.

403
00:30:17,000 --> 00:30:21,000
Next up, the modern myth of frozen, exploding Christmas trees.

404
00:30:23,000 --> 00:30:26,000
And the strain from rain that blows mostly through the pain.

405
00:30:27,000 --> 00:30:30,000
It's not quite biblical, but it sure is torrential.

406
00:30:36,000 --> 00:30:40,000
Now for the second chilling myth of liquid nitrogen.

407
00:30:40,000 --> 00:30:43,000
Alright, exploding frozen tree, let's talk about that one.

408
00:30:43,000 --> 00:30:47,000
Okay, well the story goes that there was a leak in a liquid nitrogen processing plant.

409
00:30:47,000 --> 00:30:52,000
One of the pipes burst and liquid nitrogen started to flood down into the office.

410
00:30:52,000 --> 00:30:55,000
Now it was a holiday, so there was a Christmas tree and a bunch of decorations,

411
00:30:55,000 --> 00:30:58,000
but most importantly, the liquid nitrogen leaked onto the Christmas tree.

412
00:30:58,000 --> 00:31:01,000
And bang, explodes into splinters.

413
00:31:01,000 --> 00:31:03,000
Right, now in theory this could work.

414
00:31:03,000 --> 00:31:09,000
I mean, maybe the water inside of the tree froze and expanded and caused the tree to fail catastrophically.

415
00:31:09,000 --> 00:31:13,000
Just like us mammals, most of the mass of a tree is water.

416
00:31:13,000 --> 00:31:16,000
When water turns twice, it expands.

417
00:31:16,000 --> 00:31:24,000
And if the freezing is almost instantaneous, well it doesn't take a tree surgeon to see how that might just ruin Christmas for everyone.

418
00:31:26,000 --> 00:31:27,000
So where should we start?

419
00:31:27,000 --> 00:31:30,000
Well let's start by finding out how much water a tree contains.

420
00:31:30,000 --> 00:31:33,000
We can do a classic biology dry weight experiment.

421
00:31:33,000 --> 00:31:36,000
Alright, once we've determined that, let's get two identical trees.

422
00:31:36,000 --> 00:31:39,000
We'll take them out to the bomb range, we'll blow one up as a control,

423
00:31:39,000 --> 00:31:43,000
and the other one will pour tons of liquid nitrogen over and see what happens.

424
00:31:43,000 --> 00:31:45,000
Sounds like fun, let's do it.

425
00:31:45,000 --> 00:31:47,000
Our wood chipper's here.

426
00:31:47,000 --> 00:31:53,000
Step one is to see just how much H2O lurks inside a standard Christmas tree.

427
00:31:53,000 --> 00:31:55,000
And this will not be pretty.

428
00:31:55,000 --> 00:31:59,000
We're gonna shake the dirt off this, throw this thing into a wood chipper,

429
00:31:59,000 --> 00:32:03,000
and we're gonna take all those wood chips, throw them in pans, measure their weight.

430
00:32:03,000 --> 00:32:07,000
After that, we're gonna stick them in a low heat kiln, slowly dry them out,

431
00:32:07,000 --> 00:32:10,000
evaporate all the moisture out of them, and then measure them again.

432
00:32:10,000 --> 00:32:14,000
So instead of trimming the tree, they'll tear it to shreds.

433
00:32:14,000 --> 00:32:19,000
But every last leaf and twig must be preserved for science.

434
00:32:19,000 --> 00:32:21,000
You sure are a chipper today?

435
00:32:21,000 --> 00:32:27,000
And just in case some shards of shrubbery miss the trash can, there's a safety net.

436
00:32:27,000 --> 00:32:30,000
I think we'll be able to catch everything with this.

437
00:32:30,000 --> 00:32:33,000
It's just crazy enough to work.

438
00:32:33,000 --> 00:32:38,000
Back inside, it's time to feed this innocent conifer to the wood chipper.

439
00:32:39,000 --> 00:32:42,000
Every shred went straight in the bucket.

440
00:32:42,000 --> 00:32:46,000
Not the result you'd expect from these two, let loose with a wood chipper,

441
00:32:46,000 --> 00:32:48,000
but better luck next time.

442
00:32:48,000 --> 00:32:49,000
Awesome.

443
00:32:49,000 --> 00:32:53,000
I have to say this is definitely one of the better smelling experiments we've ever had in the shop.

444
00:32:53,000 --> 00:32:56,000
Mmm, so much better than rotting meat.

445
00:32:56,000 --> 00:33:02,000
They'll check the diminishing mass each and every hour, but that could take days.

446
00:33:02,000 --> 00:33:06,000
Tray number one, 7.4 pounds.

447
00:33:06,000 --> 00:33:09,000
Alright, 7.4, that's it.

448
00:33:09,000 --> 00:33:11,000
The oven is filled.

449
00:33:11,000 --> 00:33:13,000
Now it's time to bake our tree.

450
00:33:13,000 --> 00:33:19,000
In the meantime, there's fun to be had on the bomb range with an ill-fated control tree.

451
00:33:19,000 --> 00:33:23,000
I hate to get sappy here, but does anybody feel really bad about blowing up a tree?

452
00:33:23,000 --> 00:33:25,000
Is this what Christmas is like at JD's house?

453
00:33:25,000 --> 00:33:27,000
Hahaha.

454
00:33:28,000 --> 00:33:29,000
Oh!

455
00:33:29,000 --> 00:33:31,000
Smells great!

456
00:33:32,000 --> 00:33:36,000
Now of course we can all imagine what an exploding tree looks like,

457
00:33:36,000 --> 00:33:40,000
but in the name of science and all things cool, we're gonna do it anyway.

458
00:33:41,000 --> 00:33:48,000
The myth does call for a tree explosion, so as a point of comparison, we'll simulate that with some restraint.

459
00:33:48,000 --> 00:33:50,000
So what do we got here?

460
00:33:50,000 --> 00:33:52,000
A little deck cord? That ought to do it.

461
00:33:52,000 --> 00:33:55,000
Yeah, we could use C4, we could use all sorts of explosives,

462
00:33:55,000 --> 00:33:59,000
but I think deck cord gives us the best chance of not blowing it up to complete smithereen.

463
00:33:59,000 --> 00:34:01,000
Yeah, that's probably a good call.

464
00:34:01,000 --> 00:34:03,000
And look, it's gonna look like a Christmas tree.

465
00:34:03,000 --> 00:34:09,000
The team retreats as JD sets the firing cap, then calls in the chaos.

466
00:34:09,000 --> 00:34:12,000
Fire in the hole! Fire in the hole!

467
00:34:12,000 --> 00:34:15,000
In three, two, one, go JD!

468
00:34:15,000 --> 00:34:18,000
Oh! Oh!

469
00:34:18,000 --> 00:34:21,000
Looks like we just gave it a haircut.

470
00:34:21,000 --> 00:34:23,000
And then some more.

471
00:34:24,000 --> 00:34:30,000
This is the kind of defoliation they hope to get from a big fat blast of LN2.

472
00:34:30,000 --> 00:34:33,000
Now if liquid nitrogen can do this, I'll be impressed.

473
00:34:33,000 --> 00:34:35,000
Alright, next test, liquid nitrogen.

474
00:34:35,000 --> 00:34:36,000
Alright.

475
00:34:42,000 --> 00:34:48,000
So far Adam and Jamie have disproved the myth that it's best to open all your windows in a hurricane.

476
00:34:48,000 --> 00:34:51,000
That's exactly what we'd expect.

477
00:34:51,000 --> 00:34:56,000
The large-scale house suffered no structural damage, with windows open or closed.

478
00:34:56,000 --> 00:34:59,000
They were just too small to make a difference.

479
00:34:59,000 --> 00:35:04,000
But real storm damage might owe more to rain than it does to wind.

480
00:35:04,000 --> 00:35:09,000
Time to bring water into the picture, and the guys are currently installing the Rainmaker.

481
00:35:09,000 --> 00:35:16,000
71 spouts that will pour 40 inches per hour of rain on our house in a hurricane.

482
00:35:16,000 --> 00:35:20,000
It's not quite biblical, but it sure is torrential.

483
00:35:20,000 --> 00:35:25,000
They'll need to replicate a long-term torrent in a few short minutes.

484
00:35:25,000 --> 00:35:29,000
So Jamie adds a fire hose to the sideways downpour.

485
00:35:29,000 --> 00:35:32,000
That means we're going to dump a buttload of water onto this house all at once,

486
00:35:32,000 --> 00:35:36,000
and it should be pretty much equivalent to several days of hurricane.

487
00:35:38,000 --> 00:35:42,000
Now with the rain, I feel like if anything's going to cause some real structural damage,

488
00:35:42,000 --> 00:35:46,000
it's going to be the one-two punch of wind and rain.

489
00:35:47,000 --> 00:35:51,000
And punch number three is the flying debris.

490
00:35:53,000 --> 00:35:57,000
Adam supplies friendly fire via the lawn furniture.

491
00:35:57,000 --> 00:36:02,000
The windows get smashed early on, as they would in a real hurricane.

492
00:36:04,000 --> 00:36:08,000
It's a short storm, but they've literally thrown everything into it.

493
00:36:08,000 --> 00:36:12,000
What do you think we replicated an overnight hurricane in about 10 minutes?

494
00:36:12,000 --> 00:36:17,000
Odds are they did, so how did the Tea Party weather the deluge?

495
00:36:17,000 --> 00:36:20,000
Wow, what a mess.

496
00:36:20,000 --> 00:36:23,000
There's water everywhere.

497
00:36:23,000 --> 00:36:27,000
The best thing to do in a hurricane is to board up all your windows.

498
00:36:27,000 --> 00:36:33,000
The house itself won't be at greater risk, and you might save yourself a whole lot of heartache.

499
00:36:33,000 --> 00:36:37,000
Imagine everything you own soaked to the bone.

500
00:36:37,000 --> 00:36:43,000
The floors of your house, all of your clothes, all of your electronics, all of your paperwork.

501
00:36:43,000 --> 00:36:50,000
And then imagine that it might take you days or even weeks to be allowed back into your house to start to salvage that stuff,

502
00:36:50,000 --> 00:36:56,000
as it slowly rots and molds and becomes completely unusable.

503
00:36:56,000 --> 00:36:59,000
Let's tell me if you still think water damage is minor.

504
00:36:59,000 --> 00:37:03,000
Will windows open or windows closed? Where do we stand on this myth?

505
00:37:03,000 --> 00:37:08,000
Well, in a Category 2 hurricane in a house built to code, no difference.

506
00:37:08,000 --> 00:37:12,000
So then it's myth busted. No help from opening your windows.

507
00:37:12,000 --> 00:37:16,000
In fact, opening your windows opens you up to a whole new world of pain.

508
00:37:16,000 --> 00:37:18,000
You've got your water damage, debris, and even looters.

509
00:37:18,000 --> 00:37:22,000
Well, if it was up to me, I'd be boarding those windows up and getting the heck out of there.

510
00:37:22,000 --> 00:37:24,000
Yeah, me too.

511
00:37:33,000 --> 00:37:35,000
Strangest explosions ever.

512
00:37:35,000 --> 00:37:38,000
This thing can explode at any moment.

513
00:37:42,000 --> 00:37:44,000
Burn a hole!

514
00:37:44,000 --> 00:37:51,000
Tori, Grant, and Carrie have slow cooked one tree, then blown up another to test a tail of liquid nitrogen.

515
00:37:53,000 --> 00:38:00,000
If the fable's true, rapidly frozen water inside the tree expands so fast, it explodes.

516
00:38:00,000 --> 00:38:04,000
But is there enough moisture to justify the myth?

517
00:38:04,000 --> 00:38:11,000
So our figures have finally plateaued, and what's left of the tree is now 33% of its original weight.

518
00:38:11,000 --> 00:38:12,000
What?

519
00:38:12,000 --> 00:38:14,000
Wow, that is a lot of water.

520
00:38:14,000 --> 00:38:16,000
Tree's two-thirds water.

521
00:38:16,000 --> 00:38:18,000
So there might actually be something to this myth.

522
00:38:18,000 --> 00:38:23,000
All right, well, let's get some fresh trees, go out to the Alameda bomb range, pour some liquid nitrogen over them, see what happens.

523
00:38:23,000 --> 00:38:24,000
All right.

524
00:38:24,000 --> 00:38:26,000
Awesome.

525
00:38:27,000 --> 00:38:32,000
So it's back to the bomb range with a brand new tree and a truckload of LN2.

526
00:38:32,000 --> 00:38:38,000
Anybody who's taken a high school chemistry class knows just how effective liquid nitrogen can be to freeze something.

527
00:38:38,000 --> 00:38:46,000
So we thought in Mythbusters fashion we'd take a small quantity, like 2,800 gallons of liquid nitrogen, and we're going to pump it through this hose.

528
00:38:46,000 --> 00:38:50,000
And out through these phase separators, where it'll separate the liquid nitrogen from the gases.

529
00:38:50,000 --> 00:38:54,000
So we'll be able to dump hundreds of gallons of liquid nitrogen over the entire tree.

530
00:38:54,000 --> 00:39:00,000
And just to check our progress, we've got this temperature probe, which should be good down to a minus 300 degrees Fahrenheit.

531
00:39:00,000 --> 00:39:03,000
We'll jam it in the trunk and watch it remotely.

532
00:39:03,000 --> 00:39:07,000
I have my doubts that this tree is going to give us any sort of grand explosion.

533
00:39:07,000 --> 00:39:15,000
If anything, maybe some of the ornaments might explode, which, you know, when I told the story later, I might say the tree exploded.

534
00:39:15,000 --> 00:39:20,000
But I'm definitely standing behind the blast shields, just in case I'm wrong, because I am often wrong.

535
00:39:21,000 --> 00:39:26,000
The frigid fog rolls in and carry braces for the big bang.

536
00:39:26,000 --> 00:39:30,000
As the liquid turns to gas, oxygen gets sucked out of the mix.

537
00:39:30,000 --> 00:39:35,000
So I'll say it again, folks. Don't get too close to liquid nitrogen.

538
00:39:35,000 --> 00:39:37,000
43.5 degrees.

539
00:39:37,000 --> 00:39:40,000
That's dropping fast. That's like 20 degrees in two minutes.

540
00:39:40,000 --> 00:39:42,000
It's dropping faster now.

541
00:39:42,000 --> 00:39:43,000
What are we at?

542
00:39:43,000 --> 00:39:46,000
16.2, heading towards zero.

543
00:39:46,000 --> 00:39:49,000
This thing could explode at any moment.

544
00:39:50,000 --> 00:39:51,000
It sure could.

545
00:39:51,000 --> 00:39:57,000
And let's note that the freezing point of water is plus 32 degrees Fahrenheit.

546
00:40:00,000 --> 00:40:04,000
We're dumping gallons and gallons of liquid nitrogen over the top of the tree.

547
00:40:04,000 --> 00:40:07,000
It looks like fog rolling down off the top of it.

548
00:40:07,000 --> 00:40:11,000
You can actually see the trunk slowly turn white and freeze.

549
00:40:11,000 --> 00:40:15,000
No tree in history ever got this chilly. This fast.

550
00:40:15,000 --> 00:40:20,000
The coldest temperature recorded on Earth is minus 146 degrees Fahrenheit,

551
00:40:20,000 --> 00:40:24,000
and this freeze shows no sign of slowing.

552
00:40:24,000 --> 00:40:29,000
We're reaching minus 200. I can't even comprehend that.

553
00:40:29,000 --> 00:40:35,000
Over the next few minutes, the tree gets much colder, pushing on to the limits of absolute zero,

554
00:40:35,000 --> 00:40:39,000
but still no explosion.

555
00:40:39,000 --> 00:40:45,000
We got the core temperature of the tree to minus 330 degrees Fahrenheit.

556
00:40:45,000 --> 00:40:52,000
If that tree were going to explode as a result of the water inside freezing, it would have.

557
00:40:52,000 --> 00:40:55,000
But unfortunately for the myth, it's still intact.

558
00:40:55,000 --> 00:40:57,000
I think we should call this and check it out.

559
00:40:57,000 --> 00:40:59,000
All right, let's call it.

560
00:40:59,000 --> 00:41:03,000
All right, Fred, go ahead and kill the liquid nitrogen.

561
00:41:03,000 --> 00:41:08,000
They couldn't get it any colder, and the tree hasn't so much as shed a leaf.

562
00:41:09,000 --> 00:41:11,000
I was really hoping this thing was going to explode.

563
00:41:11,000 --> 00:41:12,000
Check for cracks.

564
00:41:12,000 --> 00:41:15,000
Wow, not any cracks though.

565
00:41:15,000 --> 00:41:17,000
I don't see any cracks at all.

566
00:41:17,000 --> 00:41:23,000
But the whole trunk is like covered in frost, and it means it's completely been covered in liquid nitrogen.

567
00:41:23,000 --> 00:41:24,000
What should we do now?

568
00:41:24,000 --> 00:41:27,000
Well, I wonder what would happen if there was some sort of impact.

569
00:41:27,000 --> 00:41:31,000
Could you actually shatter this tree the way you do with those science experiments?

570
00:41:31,000 --> 00:41:33,000
Yeah, how about if we hit it with the shotgun?

571
00:41:33,000 --> 00:41:35,000
That sounds like a plan to me.

572
00:41:35,000 --> 00:41:37,000
Yeah, nice filing myth buster ending. I like it.

573
00:41:38,000 --> 00:41:46,000
We do like to end with a bang, and a load of buckshot just might deliver the catastrophic con of her failure we hope for.

574
00:41:46,000 --> 00:41:49,000
If anybody loves Christmas, turn your heads now.

575
00:41:49,000 --> 00:41:52,000
This just seems wrong, shooting a Christmas tree.

576
00:41:54,000 --> 00:41:58,000
Safety's off. Here we go in three, two, one.

577
00:41:58,000 --> 00:42:03,000
The tree's frozen solid, but it's still not smashing to smithereens.

578
00:42:03,000 --> 00:42:08,000
All right, it's about as good as we get.

579
00:42:08,000 --> 00:42:10,000
What more can you do?

580
00:42:10,000 --> 00:42:15,000
Well, here's what you could have done much earlier. Asked an expert.

581
00:42:15,000 --> 00:42:18,000
As an arborist, what are we doing wrong? Why is the tree not exploding?

582
00:42:18,000 --> 00:42:22,000
Trees and colder climates are naturally built to not explode.

583
00:42:22,000 --> 00:42:28,000
What happens is the water inside of the tree's cells moves to air spaces outside of the tree's cells,

584
00:42:28,000 --> 00:42:34,000
and those air spaces provide enough room for the water to expand without exploding the tree.

585
00:42:34,000 --> 00:42:40,000
So the water does freeze and it does expand, but because the air space is, the trunk doesn't go boom boom.

586
00:42:40,000 --> 00:42:41,000
Correct.

587
00:42:41,000 --> 00:42:44,000
So no matter how much we freeze this tree, it's never going to explode?

588
00:42:44,000 --> 00:42:45,000
I doubt it.

589
00:42:45,000 --> 00:42:47,000
Stupid adapting nature.

590
00:42:47,000 --> 00:42:50,000
All that remains is to officially admit defeat.

591
00:42:50,000 --> 00:42:56,000
Look at that. It's obvious that this tree is frozen completely to the core, and even with a high velocity impact,

592
00:42:56,000 --> 00:42:59,000
it did not shatter it or do anything that looked like an explosion.

593
00:42:59,000 --> 00:43:05,000
Yeah, we froze it with liquid nitrogen, didn't explode, and we hit it with a shotgun shell, still didn't explode.

594
00:43:05,000 --> 00:43:07,000
All right, guess we're calling this one busted.

595
00:43:07,000 --> 00:43:08,000
Busted.

596
00:43:08,000 --> 00:43:09,000
Busted.

597
00:43:09,000 --> 00:43:11,000
You know, I could always go into the tree tree business.

598
00:43:11,000 --> 00:43:12,000
Ha ha ha.

599
00:43:26,000 --> 00:43:28,000
Who's a good boy?