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[HUMAN NEGLECT] |
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Typical scene showing how the tunnels branch under the streets in order to
reach the many stores and warehouses they serve. Source: Chicago Tunnel
Terminal Corporation. The Chicago Freight Tunnels. 1928. p.28
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On April 13, 1992 at 5:57 a.m., the boiler room engineer at Chicago's Merchandise Mart called the city fire department to report water rushing into the building's third basement. This was the first notice that something had gone drastically wrong with the 50 mile network of freight tunnels that had been built at the turn of the century beneath that city. Finished in 1915, and considered an impressive architectural feat for the times, the tunnel infrastructure was built by the use of manual construction methods, using thick unreinforced concrete sections behind wooden forms, with an invert which ranged from 20 feet below the river level, to more than 50 feet at some places. This tunnel system once had been used to transport goods between the downtown buildings, as a way to counteract and relieve the traffic on the streets above. Now that system was compromised by a breach in a tunnel wall which allowed water to rush in at a rate of over 5 foot per second [apprx 80,000 gallons per hour] (see endnote #1). |
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At the time of it's completion, miniature electric locomotives had been used to transport the goods, but by 1959 there was a decidedly declining demand for their services and lack of money. This led to the decision to abandon the rail system and instead, to use the tunnel system as a conduit for power and fiber-optic cables. These critical utilities were threatened by the flooding on the April 13th event, which knocked out service to over 100 buildings. Businesses were forced to sent home thousands of workers, a necessary task which virtually closed down one of the nations most important financial centers (see endnote #2). |
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Mayor Richard M. Daley immediately contracted the Kenny Construction Co. to stop the leak, but after an unsuccessful attempt to plug the hole, the Mayor was forced to call in the state and federal officials. The Chicago Loop was declared a national disaster area by President Bush on April 15, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency [FEMA] took over federal response. On April 18, FEMA directed the Corps of Engineers to plug the leak and drain the tunnel system, and authorized the Corps to provide technical assistance to the city's various emergency construction contractors (see endnote #3). |
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Six access shafts, ranging from 60 to 84 inches in diameter, and spaced approximately 20 foot apart, were drilled into the tunnel and reinforced by placing 3/4 inch casing in each. Sandbags and 3 in. diameter stone were dumped into the shafts to a ground surface approximately 50 ft above the tunnel crown in efforts to block off water flow. Stone columns were brought in to support the sandbags. It was found that the tunnels contained up to four foot of dense silt, clay and concrete aggregate. This debris interferred with the plan to bring in a concrete reinforced inflatable bladder to block off the tunnel riverward of the second access shafts. Divers had to chisel out the offending material to loosen it and used a 4 inch trash pump to remove it, before steel bearing pile and concrete plugs could be placed in the access shafts extending to the tunnel bottom to a minimum of five foot into the shaft. A combination of microfine cement, sodium silica grout and cement grout was then used to seal in the bottom of the plugs and also between the concrete, sandbag and stone shafts (see endnote #4). |
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| Next came the dewatering stage, the responsibility of the Corps under the FEMA mission directive, and subcontracted to Case International Co. [Roselle, IL] and the Waste Management Company [Chicago, IL]. Cautious testing of the plugs by the Corp. revealed solid concrete and good contact at the tunnel invert. To check overall integrity during dewatering, the U.S. Geological Survey [USGS] and a team from the Detroit District Corps, monitored all flows in the tunnel riverward of the plugs. The Corps then decided, as an added safety measure, to add additional concrete plugs to all three segments of the tunnel. |
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| With these plugs in place, dewatering commenced, and an estimated 130 million gallons of floodwater was moved from the tunnel system. After some discussion about other alternatives, the Corp decided to pump the water to street level and then to a deep-tunnel system or the city sewer system. A fiber-optic company consultant, Benjamin and Associates [Chicago], was found to have the most recent knowledge of the tunnel system, and advised where the best access points in the freight tunnels were located, including the final 10 surface pumping locations (see endnote #5). |
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All dewatering data was entered into a technical support center established at the Army Corp's Chicago District office. Information entered included the pumping rate at each site, drawdown rate measured in basements of representative buildings, USGS automated stage recorders and spot flow velocity information at the key tunnel locations, and the results of structure monitoring for building settlement. 10 river crossings were also constantly checked with high-resolution sonic and remotely operated camera surveys along the river bottom. Bridges and pavements were monitored for settlement by the Chicago Transit Authority and the City of Chicago, while the city sewer department continued to provide water-level monitoring data at 12 of the building sites. In addition, the Corps had a hotline number for building owners to report any problems. According to Army Corp. records, the dewatering stage was completed by May 22, 1992 (see endnote #6). |
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Not only below ground, but political rumbling was soon to be felt above ground. While trying to protect his administration from the responsibility of an estimated $1 billion in flood damages, Mayor Daley called for and received resignations from the city's chief bridge engineer; and supervising engineer; dismissals from the project manager and the general services inspector; and three suspensions from the Chicago Transportation and Services departments. These actions were based on preliminary findings from the Chicago Flood's investigation team. It was found that the breach in the Chicago River could be traced back to a combination of errors in a pile replacement project completed the previous September at the Kinzie St. Bridge by the Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Co. [Oak Brook,IL]. Most damning was the fact that required inspections at the time had not been made because an inspector could not find a parking space, and then change orders were authorized, which should not have been, resulting in piles which were driven either too close or directly into the tunnel 20 foot below the riverbed. It was believed after the investigation that the breach was initially caused by a pile in the relocated clusters which had been moved for a new bridge tender's booth (see endnotes #7). |
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| Even so, another chance to avert the disaster was ignored, when a local cable television company noticed the beginnings of the breach in January 1992, and notified the city in February, who had the Chicago General Services Dept. inspect it in March. Photos of the breach were sent to the Transportation Dept., which then estimated that repairs would cost around $10,000. When it was determined that the city crews could not do the work, the project was put out for bid. But when outside contractors sent in estimates that were between $55,000 and $70,000 the city decided to have a re-evaluation of its original lower estimate. Memos then chased back and forth within the Transportation Dept. in a bureaucratic dance which continued right up until the tunnel dramatically blew out. Blame was then put on later dismissed bridge engineering personnel, and on the Great Lakes Dredge and Dock Co. who were cited for failing to follow the terms of the $336,000 contract to install replacement pilings at the base of the Kinzie St. Bridge, leading to a puncture in the freight tunnel beneath the Chicago River. Great Lakes countered this by stating that any changes from the specifications were verbally approved and supervised. As of 1994 litigation regarding the issue still continued (see endnote #8). |
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| According to Illinois Governor Jim Edgar, the bureacratic mess was a "sobering lesson in trade-offs necessary during the fiscally troublesome 1990s. He stated that "infrastructure is something we've got to worry about... You bring down the defense budget, where do you want to put the money, into social programs or into the infrastructure?" Events like the Chicago Flood definitely move the weight of the arguement toward infrastructure (see endnote #9). Mayor Daley in comment at a press conference reminded everyone about the decrepit state of the country's bridges, tunnels, roads and buildings and stated, "if we don't rebuild infrastructure across America, we're all going to collaspe" (see endnote #10). |
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| As mentioned previously, telecommunications and power providers suffered difficulties from the flood. Metropolitan Fiber Systems [MFS]and Teleport Communications Group [TCG] both reported that their fiber optic cables were submerged in the flooded tunnels. Teleport, who serviced 26 downtown buildings and had 11 route miles of affected fiber , also commented that their network had maintained itself and its backup generators had worked well. Teleport attributed this to the fact that they had considered the possibility of flooding while constructing their network, and planned preventative actions by doing each of three things. They counteracted floating debris with bidirectional fiber rings; protected against wetness by having fiber enclosed in seamless aluminum cladding; and had avoided whenever possible putting any of its electronics in tunnels or basements (see endnote #11). |
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| Metropolitan Fiber's 10 miles of fiber were also reported in good shape, but just in case the MFS set up a command center and sent technician out to all 65 of the buildings it served for visual inspections. Like TCG, Metropolitan had no electronics in the tunnels, but did have some located in the flooded basements of their customers. Luckily only one of MFS's buildings needed to have its service shut off (see endnote #12). MFS unfortunately did have to use a generator to power its network for 12 hours during the Commonwealth Edison shut off, and reported a loss of $100,000 in equipment at a LaSalle Street Building, where the point of presence there needed to be reassembled on a higher floor (see endnote #13). |
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| Illinois Bell was luckier than Teleport Comm. and Metropolitan Fiber in that it had not used the underground tunnels to string its fiber optic cable. IB did have five copper cables in flooded buildings which were in trouble and another three buildings served via a fiber ring were also underwater. IB as a precaution set up an Emergency Operations Center, although many of its employees evacuated when Commonwealth Edison its power shut off. IB helped customers who also had to evacuate by forwarding nearly 500 telephone numbers to other sites, or to a prerecorded message which explained the unusual circumstance of the flood to callers. Other customers requested that IB reroute their consoles and DS-1 lines. Four cellular phones were sent to City Hall, which had lost about 20 percent of its service, and 350 feet of new cable was installed there in efforts to restore City Hall communications (see endnote #14). Illinois Bell spent several hours at the Board of Trade building a sandbag barricade around its equipment in one of the basements (see endnote #15). The telco installed 16 integrated services digital network consoles at a remote location for a major bank, 12 T-1s and 2 T-3s were installed for other customers. IB installed 4000 Centrex lines and 4000 temporary pairs of cable. The City of Chicago's command post and press center also needed installation of 200 Centrex lines and 200 business lines. IB also reported 12,800 overtime hours turned in by its field staff (see endnote #16). |
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| Tele-Communications Inc. subsidiaries Chicago Cable Television and Digital Direct reported that they also had fiber and some waterproof electronics in the tunnels and that at least 30 CATV customers had lost their service due to the Commonwealth Edison's electrical power outages. Meanwhile, AT&T helped out by providing Commonwealth with three new 800 numbers and established an emergency communications center in the western suburbs for Kemper Financial. AT&T also reconfigured two Accunet T-15 access facilities at the Board of Trade's north suburban disaster recovery site, which patched them to two new access facilities (see endnote #17). |
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| The Army Corp reported that approximately 50 buildings became flooded with some having water as much as 35 feet deep. The Corp also indicated in its report that the Chicago Transit Authority shut down both the State Street and Dearborn Street subway lines when flooding was found in the subway tunnels, and all vessel traffic was blocked off at the Kinzie Street bridge of the North Branch of the Chicago River, effectively blocking off some forms transportation within the city (see endnote #18). |
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| The following shows the Army Corp's cost estimates: |
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FEDERAL ASSISTANCE SCHEDUAL |
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4/13/92
Beginning of Chicago Flood incident.
4/15/92
[FEMA- PL 84-99] provided up to $50,000 for investigation and technical assistance to the City of Chicago. $18,700 of this was awarded to the Army Corp for more than 360 man-hours of effort. |
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4/17/92
Request no. 1 [FEMA-941-DR] provided $200,000 for the Corp of Engineers to provide continued technical assistance to the City of Chicago. |
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4/18/92
Request no. 2 [FEMA-941-DR] provided initial funding of $5,000,000 for the Corp of Engineers to provide technical, construction and other assistance as required to stop river water from entering the freight tunnels at the tunnel collaspe near Kinzie Street Bridge and to drain the tunnel system. |
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4/18/92
Chicago District awarded a $1,000,000 contract to Kenny Construction to plug the tunnel system on both sides of the river to stop the flow into the system. |
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4/19/92
$2,000,000 contract was awarded to Case International for the dewatering of the tunnel system. |
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4/20/92
Dewatering process began. 4/23/92 Vice President Quayle and Senator Moynihan visited the disaster area and Corps operations. |
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4/25/92
Most of the basements had been drained. |
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5/7/92
Most of the tunnel system has been dewatered. |
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5/20/92
All river crossings have been pumped out and turned over to the City of Chicago for periodic maintenance pumping of continued seepage. |
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6/30/92
Bulkheads completed and turned over to the City of Chicago. |
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7/31/92
[PL 84-89] The Stafford Act allocated assistance to FEMA with a total of $10,620,000 authorized. Over $10,035,000 was committed to the operation with $8,042,345 allocated to contracts and $1,992,655 allocated to Corps personnel and support. |
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| Eight key issues and recommendations were mentioned by the Army Corp in regards to the Chicago Flood: |
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1.
There was a need for EOC back-up emergency power in cases of power grid failure. The recommendation was made that the Chicago District of the Army Corps continue to work on the installation of backup emergency power capability (see endnote #20). |
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2.
It was noted that direct assistance to the Corp could be delayed because of State or Local cost share split disagreements. In the case of the Chicago Flood some of the funding was delayed three days un-necessarily due to disagreements between the State of Illinois and the City of Chicago. The recommendation made was that HQUSACE coordinate with FEMA to amend the implemention requirements [44 CFR 206] "to incorporate mechanism to apportion costs between Federal, state and local government after the disaster rather than delaying the Federal Government's response at the onset" (see endnote #21). |
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3.
Because of the uniqueness of the flood emergency the formation of a tailored command post operation was much different than the Army Corp's planned flood fight organization. The recommendations were made that contingency planning for a larger range of disasters needed to be develop [including organizations, procedures and actions] and that an on-going liaison with the City of Chicago's Public Works, Water and Sewer Depts, the Metropolitan Water Reclamation Distric of Greater Chicago, and the Commonwealth Edison Company needed to be institutionalized. It was suggested that interactive discussions "on agency authorities, engineering and response capability, current facilities/projects and disaster/emergency planning would be beneficial" (see endnote #22). |
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4.
Contractor liability and indemnification was responsible for hindering Corps contracting. In the case of the Chicago Flood, the Commonwealth Edison electric company and the contractor hired to pump out utility tunnels refused to contract with the Corps until they had received indemnification from either the State, City of Chicago or Federal Government. Delays occurred because part of the process of requesting direct assistance requires each state to agree [under 44 CFR 206.208 (b)(1)(ii)] "to hold and save the United States free from damages due to the requested work and indemnify the Federal Government against any claims arising from such work". It was commented that the agreements only extend to the Federal Government and not to the Corp's contractors. Both the City of Chicago, and the State of Illinois refused to provide the indemnification to the Corp's contractors, creating more delays. The recommendation was made the since the Corps was becoming more involved with the response state of disasters, new procedures needed to be developed "to quickly indemnify contractors working for the Federal Government in certain emergency responses (see endnote #23). |
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5.
Many key personnel were unfamiliar with the Cost Plus Fixed Fee contracting procedures, leading to the absence of proper clauses and the use of improper clauses, resulting in a delay in contract negotiations. It was further found that the scope of the work of the contracts was "insufficient in detail to allow for either Government or Contractor estimates. Due to the nature of the disaster, specific response requirements were developed as the response needs were discovered." Also, prime contractors had not been informed until after the completion of the work that they were required to "negotiate a fixed fee with subcontractors having costs greater than $100,000. Recommendations made included use of letter contracts in emergency situations where scope of the work was not well defined; that contact key personnel be trained in emergency contracting procedures; and that set Cost-Plus-Fixed-Fee contract clauses be kept by the contracting office in case of events where they might be needed (see endnote #24). |
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6.
It was noted that use of concrete bonding to existing underwater structures was extremely difficult. In the case of the Chicago Flood, the effort to use concrete with an inflatable bladder was a failure due to the fact that the bladder burst sending more concrete than desired to flow into the tunnel, leading to additional cleaning and clearing problems. Recommendations included the suggestion that pilot techniques should be avoided and that emergency efforts be limited to the simplest most effective solutions (see endnote #25). |
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7.
It was discovered that there was no staff consensus on "safety related matters". These disagreements centered on the extent of safety measures needed, response costs, and several other issues. The recommendations made were that the lines of communication needed to be kept clear during disaster operations, and that staff opinions be requested and considered during frequent staff meetings (see endnote #26). |
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8.
It was noted that the City of Chicago was vulnerable to a repeat of the tunnel flood because there were several other tunnels with similar structural problems to the one breached April 13, 1992. The recommendation was made to have a continued coordination between the Army Corp and the City of Chicago until such time as all the Chicago River crossings became sealed off from the freight tunnel system, with contingencies for potential breaches addressed (see endnote #27). |
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| By Spring 1995, the full extent of reported insured losses was still unavailable. This was due to litigation continuing in the court systems. Circumstance of the incident, insurance policy language and various principles of common and statutory law, were also responsible for the delays. Under examination, there were strong legal and contractual grounds for the commercial property insurers to deny all claims resulting from the flood. First, the standard commercial property forms did not provide for such losses. Second, there was considerable reason for the flood insurance firms to deny the claims as most courts define a flood as "an inundation of water over land not usually covered by it... as water rising or overflowing from a natural body of water." It was considered that the escape of water through the bottom of a river bed should not qualify technically as a flood. In addition, policies issued by the National Flood Insurance Program would not have been covered because their definition of a flood was "an inundation of normally dry land from overflow of inland or tidal waters, or the unusual and rapid accumulation of surface waters." Lastly, judicial precedent had clearly excluded coverage under policies issued by the Federal Insurance Administration. Under these circumstances most claimants would have been simply out of luck (see endnote #28). |
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| Yet the size and status of many corporate claimants in the regulatory climate of Illinois helped to contribute toward many insurers honoring claims which their contracts clearly excluded. This could have been attributed to business ethics as many insurers felt that it was impossible to foresee every possible contingency, and left it up to the underwriters to determine the status of each claim. Casualty underwriters on the other hand generally opposed such ex gratia payments because property insurers normally used subrogation to recover their losses, and would have considered the loss claims as inflated, excessive, or unnecessary. Unfortunately, it was expected that litigation over the Chicago flood would have resulted in disappointment for the property underwriters who expected losses to be offset by subrogation recoveries. This was especially the case because in November 1992, the Courts had declared that the City of Chicago would not be held liable for claims of losses from the flood including items such as lost time, wages, etc. (see endnote #29) |
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| As we'll see in the next case, insurance coverage can be a huge issue when it comes to the point of determining responsibility for the funding of disaster recovery, whether for manmade or natural disasters. Under normal emergency situations, insurance companies usually have no problems covering for their policy limits. But when confronted with "super" disasters, of extreme magnitude, then insurance companies heavily rely governmental programs of assistance to supplement the additional financial needs of their very needy clients. |
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Endnotes for Case #2:
1. Randall Inouye and Joseph Jacobazzi, "The Great Chicago Flood of 1992" Civil Engineering Vol. 62 No. 11 11/92 p.52 |
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2. "The Great Chicago Flood of 1992" p. 52 |
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3. "The Great Chicago Flood of 1992" p.53 |
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| 4. "The Great Chicago Flood of 1992" pp. 52-53 |
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| 5. "The Great Chicago Flood of 1992" p. 54 |
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| 6. "The Great Chicago Flood of 1992" pp. 54-55 |
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| 7. editor. "Chicago shifts to finger pointing" ENR NEWS - The McGraw-Hill Construction Weekly Vol. 228 No. 18 (New York : McGraw Hill, 5/4/92) p.10 |
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| 8. "Chicago shifts to finger pointing" p.11 |
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9. David Greising and Julia Flynn, "Top of the News: Disasters - My Kind of Town (Glub), Chicago is." Business Week
(New York : McGraw-Hill Inc., 4/27/92) p.42 |
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| 10. Michael Abramowitz, "Chicago Wet Sox: Why That Toddlin' Town Couldn't Quite Cope With the Great Flood of '92" The Washington Post, Section C p.2 |
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| 11. Ann Lindstrom,"News of the Week: Worst of Chicago Loop flood may yet to come." Telephony Vol. 222, No. 16 (Chicago, IL : Intertec Publishing, 4/20/92) p.8 |
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| 12. Ann Lindstrom, "Worst of Chicago Loop flood etc." p.8 |
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| 13. Ann Lindstrom, "News of the Week: Carriers regroup in flood aftermath" Telephony Vol. 222, No.17 (Chicago, IL : Intertec Publishing, 4/27/92) p.12 |
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| 14. Ann Lindstrom, "Worst of Chicago Loop flood etc." p.8 |
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| 15. Ann Lindstrom, "Carriers regroup in flood aftermath" p.12 |
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| 16. Ann Lindstrom, "Carriers regroup in flood aftermath" p. 16 |
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| 17. Ann Lindstrom, "Carriers regroup in flood aftermath" p.16 |
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18. US Army Corp of Engineers: Chicago District, After Action Report for Chicago Tunnel Flood
Spring 1992 8/26/92 pp. 1-2 |
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| 19. US Army Corp. After Action Report for Chicago Tunnel Flood, etc. pp.2-5 |
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| 20. US Army Corp. After Action Report for Chicago Tunnel Flood etc p.7 |
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| 21. US Army Corp. After Action Report for Chicago Tunnel Flood etc. p.8 |
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| 22. US Army Corp. After Action Report for Chicago Tunnel Flood etc. p.9 |
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| 23. US Army Corp. After Action Report for Chicago Tunnel Flood etc. p.10 |
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| 24. US Army Corp. After Action Report for Chicago Tunnel Flood etc. pp. 11-12 |
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| 25. US Army Corp. After Action Report for Chicago Tunnel Flood etc. pp. 13-14 |
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| 26. US Army Corp. After Action Report for Chicago Tunnel Flood etc. p.15 |
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| (Updated 9/02/03 D.J. Russell) |
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See the Disaster Recovery Journal's
Special Report :Underground Flood Hits Chicagos's Loop, Shutting Down
Businesses for Weeks |
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