You might be forgetting that TWD is a show about odds. Just being alive puts you at a less than 1 in 1000 odds position. So assume that for every 50 attempts at building some kind of a nice secure wall, 49 fail and 1 succeeds. That's why they are so rare. So we found the one of the ones that succeeded. I think in reality, with survivors still alive all over the country, we should expect at least a handful of projects like this to succeed. So we travelled through a couple states and found one.

 

One thing I will say though is that panels whose height is greater than their width may be a bit unstable.

 

That would maybe be the case if it was just one panel sitting by itself. However when the panels are hitched together (which is what I'm guessing was done here because you wouldn't want openings in these walls) then they act as a unit and transfer loads between each other, making them stronger against any force applied to them by anything from the outside.

Judging by the pictures Aaron showed to Michone it looked like those were some sort of L-shaped bunker panels that looked something like this



As you can see those are way more tall than they are wide, but since they have a base they can stand up straight without someone having to worry about them toppling over. Then ones Aaron showed also looked like they had a reinforcing steel bar between the 2 adjacent sides making them even more sturdy.

Take my word for it I'm a Civil Engineer :Grin:

 

You'd be right if the hitched spots were the strong point of the structure, but I think as we'll see later on, they actually aren't hitched together well. So in the case here, making the panels taller than they are wide is still a situation of less stability. And if you look at the Gin property pictures, they are just flat panels, not L shaped.

 

Comic spoilers

 

Indeed that one was of the reasons.

 

Where would you get steel walls from to begin with? Was someone in the community a semi-truck driver loading hall for bridge or skyscraper construction??

 

Yes, I believe that's how it was explained in the comics. They got the materials from a large building site.

 

It's possible that whatever instinct is driving the migration of the walkers prevented large groups from descending on Alexandria. So, maybe there were never more than a handful of walkers around at any one time to be drawn to the construction noise.

Or, perhaps the proximity to Washington DC gave them more of an opportunity to build fortifications. There would have no doubt been a huge military presence to hold the capital, and the surrounding area would have likely been the last human controlled area to fall to the walkers. So, they had time to fortify. And even after the fall, the walker population outside of downtown Washington DC would have probably been significantly depleted for the short term, and it would have been easy for the people of Alexandria to scavenge weapons, ammunition, food, and even engineering equipment from the military.

 

All great points

 

More likely, even Zombies have higher standards that wanting to get stuck in the largest collection of politicians and lawyers on Earth!

J/K In reality, just like the Governor said, a body of water like the Potomac would at least control the direction of approach from the Zombie horde.

 

Yup, the comic also briefly covers how the walls were built.

 

#1 - Why build the wall 15' tall and 12' wide? The individual sections should have been laid on their sides. Walkers can't climb and the wall would have been more efficient with wider lengths not taller heights.

#2 - Why are the support poles on the outside of the wall? As seen at the prison, the weight of hundreds of walkers pushing against the wall from the outside drops walls (basic leverage).

#3 - Why is the tall tower which is great for observation outside the wall? It is just to the left of the entrance near the solar panels).