Plot Synopsis

Using dramatic recreations, rarely seen archival footage and ersonal survivor testimony, MAKE IT OUT ALIVE is a one-hour series taht features incredible stories of survival and of the lives that were lost during these tragic, life-changing moments. Who will survive, and how? The series brings viewers back to these catastrophes and tells the stories of these events by recounting both the horrific and heroic tales of human sacrifice, bravery and survival. Plus, it features ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances -- in the center of disasters both man-made and natural -- and offers compelling insights into the moments before and after disaster strikes. The series opener, "Mount St. Helens," brings viewers back to the May 18, 1980 volcanic eruption of Mount St. Helens in Skamania County, Washington - the volcano's first eruption in over a century. Erupting with a blast equivalent to 27,000 atomic bombs, everything within an eight-mile radius was obliterated or carried away. Caught in the middle of clouds of hot ash, smoke and falling rocks are the scientists studying the volcano, an elderly resident living nearby and campers who thought they were safe outside of the danger zone. Subsequent episodes feature the stories of: a magnitude 6.9 earthquake that strikes San Francisco in 1989; the evening of May 3, 1999 when the residents of Oklahoma City were hit with a devastating tornado; a warm summer night in July 1988 when the Piper Alpha oil rig in the middle of the North Sea was the scene of the world's deadliest offshore accident; July 30, 1945 at midnight when the USS Indianapolis was sailing west on the Pacific toward the Philippines with 1,197 men on board when it was hit with two Japanese torpedoes; and October 9, 1963, when the Vajont Dam in northern Italy was the scene of incredible devastation. A special sneak peek of MAKE IT OUT ALIVE debuted on Saturday, October 7, 2017 at 9pm ET/PT on Smithsonian Channel, just eight days ahead of the official series premiere on Sunday, October 15 at 9pm.
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On Sunday, November 19, 2017 at 9pm ET/PT, Smithsonian Channel premiered Dam Disaster,"the season finale of MAKE IT OUT ALIVE. On October 9, 1963, a massive landslide slammed into a dam reservoir, unleashing a six-billion-gallon wall of water onto the unsuspecting village of Longarone, Italy. In less than five terrifying minutes, over 1,500 people were killed and a town was reduced to little more than mud and rubble. Revisit the 1963 Vajont Dam tragedy, one of the world's worst man-made disasters in history, through the firsthand accounts of those swept up in the calamity.