After reading Pluvialis’ post on drowned cities (and other things) last summer, I spent a week or so racking my brain trying to remember where I’d read a description of a drowned Thames estuary, complete with underwater buildings being reinhabited. Courtesy of BLDGBLOG’s excellent interview with Kim Stanley Robinson, I’ve been whacked over the head with it – Blue Mars.

The concrete cylinder ended some three meters down, but the ladder continued, down into a big chamber, warm, humid, fishy, and humming withe the noise of several generators in another room or building. The building’s wall, the floor, the ceilings and windows were all covered by what appeared to be a sheet of clear plastic. They were inside a bubble of some kind of clear material; outside the windows was water, murky and brown, bubbling like dishwater in a sink.

Nirgal’s face no doubt revealed his surprise; Bly, smiling briefly at the sight, said, “It was a good strong building. The what-you-might-call sheetrock is something like the tent fabrics you use on Mars, only it hardens. People have been reoccupying quite a few buildings like this, if they’re the right size and depth. Set a tube and poof, it’s like blowing glass. So a lot of Sheerness folks are moving back out here, and sailing off the dock or their roof. Tide people we call them. They figure it’s better than begging for charity in England, eh?”