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Rehabilitation work on the Kinzie Street bridge crossing the Chicago River required new pilings. Unknown to work crews, beneath the river was a Chicago Freight Subway tunnel, used in the early twentieth century to transport coal and goods, and now abandoned. One of the pilings punched through the bottom of the river into the tunnel, cracking the roof and opening a leak.
A telecommunications worker inspecting a cable running through the tunnel discovered the leak and forwarded a videotape to the city, which did not see anything serious and began a bid process to repair the tunnels, which were never formally a public responsibility (most of them had been dug clandestinely, many violated private property, and the collapse of the operator had failed to resolve ownership and maintenance responsibilities). Meanwhile the leak enlarged the hole until a ceiling collapse created an unmistakable emergency.
The water flooded into the basements of several Loop office buildings and retail stores and an underground shopping district. The city quickly evacuated the Loop and financial district in fear that electrical wires could short out. Electrical power and natural gas went down or were shut off as a precaution in much of the area. Trading at both the Chicago Board of Trade and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange ended in mid-morning as water seeped into their basements. At its height, some buildings had 40 feet (12 m) of water in their lower levels.
Workers attempted to plug the car-sized hole with 65 truckloads of rocks and cement as well as mattresses. The Army Corps of Engineers flew up mine divers from Kentucky to work on sealing the hole. In an attempt to slow the leak, the level of the Chicago River was lowered by closing the locks at Lake Michigan and opening them downstream of Chicago, and the freight tunnels were drained into the Chicago Deep Tunnel system.
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. Parking was banned downtown during the cleanup and some subway routes were temporarily closed or rerouted. Since it occurred near tax day, the IRS granted natural disaster extensions to those affected.
Eventually the city assumed maintenance responsibility for the tunnels, and watertight hatches were installed at the river crossings.
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