The Great Loop Flood
A small repair was waiting its turn, and it ran out of days.
Listen to this place’s story in Peplos.
How the story begins
The repair was priced at about ten thousand dollars. Under this river runs a railway nobody was looking after, some sixty miles of freight tunnels below the Loop, abandoned in 1959 and left to the city. In August and September 1991 a contractor replaced the pilings at this bridge. In January 1992 a cable crew found a leak and tried to reach a city technician who knew the tunnels, James McTigue.
The rest is in the app. Peplos plays the full story when you reach the place. You can also listen ahead of time.
Visiting
West Kinzie Street at the North Branch, a public bridge. Nothing of the tunnels can be seen from here, and they are not open to visitors.
Sources
- Why the 1992 Loop flood is the most Chicago story ever, WBEZ
- Memo urged immediate tunnel repairs, UPI, 14 April 1992
- Jerome B. Grubart v. Great Lakes Dredge & Dock, 513 U.S. 527
- Chicago flood, Wikipedia
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