Day 103: The Great Chicago Leak

     In Early April of 1992, work crews were performing a rehabilitation project on one of the bridges spanning the Chicago River at Kinzie Street. What they were not aware of was the fact that an old coal transport tunnel from the turn of the century sat beneath the river bed, having long fallen out of use and memory. As pilings were being driven down for the bridge work, the increase in pressure cracked the decades-old tunnel wall, causing mud to ooze in. Eventually, a city employee working in the tunnels noticed the mud oozing in from the leak. The employee forwarded a tape of this occurrence to their superior, but the city believed it to be a low priority problem and opened a lengthy bid process to fix the leak. Alas, the problem was more severe than the city thought, and once all of the mud had passed through the hole by April 13, water started rushing in straight from the Chicago River. Upon this happening, the financial district was shuttered and evacuated, in case the water shorted out electrical utilities.

     At this point, nobody really knew where all the water was coming from, or at least they didn't until WMAQ reporter Larry Langford started listening in on a police scanner and overheard some chatter from the Merchandise Mart addressing water in the basement-with fish included. Langford soon went down to the Mart, where he filed the following report: "I have found something very interesting in the Chicago River...I see swirling water that looks like a giant drain...the source of the water could be the river itself...I do not see any emergency crews near the spinning swirl...I think someone should wake up the Mayor!"(Luckily, the Mayor didn't have any boorish responses this time around.) Needless to say, somebody woke up the Mayor soon after Langford's report aired. By the time city crews got to the hole, it was an astounding 20 FEET in diameter. Where 65 truckloads of rocks and cement failed, ultimately plugs inserted into drilled shafts in the river did the trick of stopping the flood. The flood cost the city $1.95 Billion, which touched off a years-long insurance battle over the parsing of words. Leaks are covered under insurance, while floods are not. Ultimately, the incident was ruled a leak, thus coining the term "Great Chicago Leak" for what had transpired.