Chicago Flood Is a Warning, Officials Say

As Chicago struggled to bail out from its biggest public works disaster since the Great Fire of 1871, experts said Tuesday that the subterranean river leak that shorted out the Loop highlighted the perilously neglected state of the nation’s infrastructure.

“The Chicago flood is more than a crack in a retaining wall,” warned Rep. Norman Y. Mineta (D-San Jose), senior member of the House Public Works and Transportation Committee. “It’s the shape of things to come in America unless we reverse decades of under-investment that threatens to undermine our cities.”

About 200 Chicago buildings remained without power and tens of thousands of workers were turned away from their jobs for a second day as approximately 250 million gallons of water--enough to fill Los Angeles City Hall four times over--sloshed through a network of old coal-delivery tunnels and into basements throughout the central business district.

As estimates of damages and lost business revenues ranged from the millions to even the billions of dollars, Gov. Jim Edgar declared the central city a state disaster area, a prelude to being granted a federal disaster-area declaration.

The deluge began Monday morning after a sedan-sized rupture developed in a portion of an abandoned tunnel that runs under the Chicago River. The hole, believed opened by the delayed effect of pilings being driven into the riverbed last summer, acted like the drain on a bathtub as it sucked river water into the 45-mile tunnel system that honeycombs the Loop and adjacent areas.

After more than a day of trying to plug the leak with rocks, sandbags, quick-drying concrete and even mattresses, officials said the flow of water had slowed significantly but probably had not yet been stopped. They were preparing to send down divers in protective cages to place sandbags by hand. They were also struggling to jury-rig a system that could siphon water out of the tunnels and into a monstrous underground catch basin known here as “Deep Tunnel.”

Meanwhile, Mayor Richard M. Daley fired a high-ranking official after it was learned that the city Transportation Department had known for at least a month that there was a leakage problem in the tunnel near the spot where the break occurred.

The flood, Daley said, was “a major problem that could have been avoided.” At a City Hall press conference, Daley played a dramatic video made in January by a crew that was laying cable-television line in the tunnel around the area where the collapse ultimately occurred. It showed a large swatch of crumbled concrete wall, standing water and silt.

The cable firm notified the city, which did its own inspections on March 13 and determined that the tunnel badly needed to be patched and that the job might be done for as little as $10,000, the mayor said.

Rather than order repairs on an emergency basis, Daley said, the job apparently was put out through the regular competitive bidding process earlier this month and the contract had yet to be awarded.

The mayor made it clear more disciplinary actions were to come. “I don’t like the word ‘heads will roll,’ ” Daley said. “But people will be held accountable.”

Used from the turn of the century to deliver coal and merchandise to downtown merchants, the tunnel was largely abandoned 33 years ago. But it was neither maintained nor shut off, setting the stage for Monday’s catastrophe.

Though the problems here are clearly more dramatic than most infrastructure failures, analysts said they vividly demonstrate a dangerous and foolishly wasteful trend toward deferring maintenance on roads, bridges, sewers, water systems, tunnels and a wide array of other important capital projects.

“We can’t afford to stand back, wait for the next catastrophe and then turn to the Army Corps of Engineers for a quick fix,” warned Mineta. “We’ve got to plan for the future and then get the systems we need built before the old ones undercut us again and again and again.”

Ronald Norris, a Missouri public works official and vice president of the American Public Works Assn., said a 1989 presidential task force study found that spending on infrastructure repairs and replacement had declined from 20% of all federal, state and local expenditures in 1960 to only 7% by 1985.

“States and cities are balancing budgets by deferring maintenance, and that is false economy,” said Norris, who estimated that his own state had put off $600 million in needed repairs to public buildings. “Sooner or later you pay, and you pay treble damages and more.”

According to Rebuild America, a Washington-based coalition of municipal, state, labor, engineering and building groups, the nation’s crumbling foundations are endangering health and choking off growth.

For example, the group claims that leaking pipes waste nearly a third of the nation’s fresh water supply each day. It also says 41% of the nation’s nearly 600,000 highway bridges are either obsolete or deficient.

Pat Choate, the author of a respected study of infrastructure decline titled “America in Ruins,” said federal, state and local governments have committed only $750 billion to infrastructure improvements over the next decade, although another $2 trillion is needed. By contrast, he said, the Japanese have budgeted $3 trillion for infrastructure during the same period, and the Germans have allotted $1.5 trillion.

“We’re a country that is slowly falling apart,” Choate said. “You see evidence of it everywhere.”

This week, at least, there was clear evidence of that in Chicago. As pumps worked overtime and hoses snaked out of basements and into manholes all over the Loop, authorities reported that water appeared to be receding in many buildings.

Power, which even had to be shut off to dozens of structures that escaped damage, was gradually being restored to some high-rise buildings. But many others could remain dark for days until water is drained and damage to electrical switching equipment can be assessed, according to Commonwealth Edison, the city’s electric utility.

Water was still reported at levels of 20 feet or more in the subbasements of big department stores like Marshall Field & Co., which remained closed. The Board of Trade, the world’s largest futures exchange, was still reportedly taking on water all day Tuesday.

For harried taxpayers, the flood brought one bit of good news. Both federal and state officials announced that Chicago taxpayers whose accountants were forced to shut down would be granted one-week reprieves past today’s regular filing deadline. All they need do to get an extension is scrawl “Chicago flood” across the tops of their returns.

How the Tunnel Flood Happened

Here are events that led to the flooding of tunnels under Chicago, based on preliminary information from Mayor Richard M. Daley:

* July-September, 1991: Private company installs pilings to protect Kinzie Street bridge from barges. Daley says pilings put additional pressure on underlying tunnel, leading to cracks and leakage.

* January, 1992: Cable TV company workers discover cracked area 20 feet long by six feet high, and water and silt. They videotape a caved-in wall and a worker slogging through knee-deep mud.

* February: Cable TV company notifies General Services Department. Department employee goes into tunnel but is unable to find damage, apparently because of incorrect directions.

* March 13: General Services employee is given correct location and finds trouble area.

* March 16: General Services employee notifies Transportation Department.

* March 18: Specialist from Transportation Department photographs damage and notifies superior.

* March 25: Photographs reviewed by Transportation Department’s soil specialist. Meeting scheduled involving members of both departments.

* April 2: Memo written by Chief Bridge Engineer Louis Koncza describes cracks and suggests cause may be piling installation. Memo says wall should immediately be repaired at approximate cost of $10,000. It cites potential for flooding of entire tunnel system. Memo delivered to acting Transportation Commissioner John LaPlante.

* April 2-13: Two construction companies visit site to prepare estimates. They exceed internal estimates by Transportation Department, so agency seeks other estimates.

* April 13: Tunnel wall ruptures.