Chicago Tunnel Flood

[swall]

Today is the 15th anniversary of the Chicago tunnel flood. Some piles driven in the Chicago River pierced a long abandoned freight tunnel that ran under the river. There were about 50 miles of these tunnels and many of the buildings downtown had their basements flooded.The tunnels, 40 feet below the surface, were built for two foot gauge trains used to bring in freight and haul ashes from the down town buildings.

 

[PSE]

If I remember correctly, the cause was some piling work or replacement near a bridge over the River. They had a heck of a time trying to seal the breach.

 

[casseopeia]

I was working in Chicago at the time. I had an Armory project on the south side and when I returned to the loop office, the city was deserted and I couldn’t get into my building. I was very eerie. Luckily I had one of those ‘bag’ phones in the company car and I called a co-worker who told me what happened. One of my favorite quotes from the newscasts was a reporter, I think it was Carol Marine, called the construction equipment a ‘steam shovels’. I also laughed when the guys threw mattresses into the river thinking they were going to plug the hole.

Another good quote that was reported in the paper was from a young inspector who had seen the breach in the ceiling of the tunnel and had waded through water and silt, but he 'didn’t think it was important at the time.' I’m not sure how many heads rolled over that one, but it was several.

I hope someone finds a good link. I'd love to re-read some of that stuff.




"If you are going to walk on thin ice, you might as well dance!"

 

[JAE]

Here's some links:

http://www.chipublib.org/004chicago/disasters/tunnel_flood.html

A VHS you can buy of a news program:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/A...14573&adid=1ZXX08F5XEF0D48F0VDM&link_code=as1

A book on Chicago’s underground freight tunnels

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/A...14573&adid=1ZXX08F5XEF0D48F0VDM&link_code=as1

Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Flood

And T-shirt Art of the flood!:

http://www.art-teez.org/artists2/gl2.htm

 

[swall]

Cass-- there is a great book, "Forty Feet Below" by Bruce Moffat, now out of print. But, you may be able to find it on Amazon dot com. I have this book--it is soft cover, about 80 pages and has lots of good b/w photos. Best one is on page 49, with a shot purportedly of May West sitting on one of the cars at a location under the Palmer House.

 

[kenvlach]

Pretty funny revisionism by the government:
"Prompt response by government agencies emptied the tunnels of water and restored utility service."

http://www.chipublib.org/004chicago/disasters/tunnel_flood.h

Actually, took a while for City officials to figure out what was happening and longer to fix.

"It took three days before the flood was cleaned up enough to allow business to begin to resume and cost the city an estimated $1.95 billion. Some buildings remained closed for a few weeks."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Flood

"Finally, a massive pumping system was operated for several weeks to finally drain the flooded tunnels."

http://www.kennyconstruction.com/about/chicagoflood.htm

 

[JAE]

This is sort of off-topic, but San Antonio has a tunnel under its downtown that is meant to flood.

http://www.floodsafety.com/texas/documentaries/j2002/j02_SA.htm

The Corps of Engineers installed this in the 1980's to control flooding by using an inverted syphon system - a 3 mile underground tunnel that allows excess water to bypass the downtown (and riverwalk) areas.