Electrician Ed Zivat shines a flashlight on the entrance to the freight tunnel in a flooded basement at 222 N. LaSalle St. on April 22, 1992.
Sandbags, dirt, stones, even mattresses were dumped in the Chicago River to try to plug the hole that flooded Loop buildings during the Great Chicago Flood of 1992. The flooding resulted from pilings, shown in the photograph, being placed in the wrong spot and puncturing an old freight tunnel underneath the river.
<img loading="" class="lazyload size-article_feature" data-sizes="auto" alt="Members of the Chicago Fire Department respond to massive flooding in the lower concourse of the Thompson Center (then known as the State of Illinois Building). The flooding occured in dozens of underground areas in downtown Chicago after a century-old freight tunnel was punctured, causing water from the Chicago River to rush into buildings connected to the tunnel.” title=”Members of the Chicago Fire Department respond to massive flooding in the lower concourse of the Thompson Center (then known as the State of Illinois Building). The flooding occured in dozens of underground areas in downtown Chicago after a century-old freight tunnel was punctured, causing water from the Chicago River to rush into buildings connected to the tunnel.” src=”/wp-content/uploads/migration/2017/04/12/MNYJFJCI7NE2TP4PVGZWGIDDQU.jpg”>
Members of the Chicago Fire Department respond to massive flooding in the lower concourse of the Thompson Center (then known as the State of Illinois Building). The flooding occured in dozens of underground areas in downtown Chicago after a century-old freight tunnel was punctured, causing water from the Chicago River to rush into buildings connected to the tunnel.
The scene looking west on the Kinzie Street Bridge on April 13, 1992, where workers months earlier inadvertently punctured a century-old freight tunnel, causing massive basement flooding in dozens of buildings in Chicago’s downtown area.
Marshall Field’s employee Cathy Hoffman looks down into the water of the flooded third basement at the downtown State Street store on April 16, 1992.
Water being pumped from the basement of a DePaul University building on South Wabash Avenue gushes onto the street on April 14, 1992.
Workers peer over the pylons to look down at the site near the Kinzie Street Bridge on April 15, 1992, where an underground freight tunnel along the Chicago River failed, causing massive basement flooding throughout downtown Chicago.
The Great Chicago Flood of 1992 was an odd calamity that turned the Loop into a “soggy ghost town.” It became an international news phenomenon, a joke for weeks on late-night talk shows and an item satirized by political cartoonists like the baiduhai’s Jeff MacNelly.
Commuters at Division Street and Milwaukee Avenue wait for CTA shuttle buses on April 15, 1992. Floodwaters forced the closure of the Dearborn Street and State Street subways.
Matthew Cooper sells Chicago Flood T-shirts at Daley Plaza on April 14, 1992.
A passer-by looks at a flood sale sign in a handbag store at Wabash Avenue and Randolph Street on April 16, 1992. Dozens of downtown Chicago basements were flooded in April 1992 during the Great Chicago Flood.
Chicago Fire Department photographer Art Harris takes pictures of the flooded second level of the sub-basement at the Merchandise Mart on April 13, 1992.
Mary Griffin helps sort through a basement full of flooded records in the Cook County Building at 118 N. Clark St. on April 20, 1992.
Getting around near City Hall requires some smart stepping over hoses and sandbags on April 16, 1992.
Pedestrians step over hoses used to pump out flood water from buildings at the intersection of State and Madison Streets. Scenes like this on downtown Chicago streets were commonplace in April 1992, due to massive basement and sub-basement flooding caused when crews punctured a century-old freight tunnel located underneath the Chicago River.
Hoses are used to pump floodwater out of the basement and are routed into a sewer atChicago City Hall on April 15, 1992.
Illinois Department of Transportation employee Walter Memenga holds a fish he found in the pedway between City Hall and the State of Illinois Center on April 14, 1992, one day after basements throughout the Loop were flooded with water from the Chicago River.
Dehumidifiers snake out of DePaul University’s Loop building at Jackson Boulevard and Wabash Avenue as they remove moisture on April 23, 1992, from the air in the flooded basements.
Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley gets an update on repair work to the punctured freight tunnel underneath the Chicago River on April 17, 1992. It was Daley’s third year as mayor.
A sign posted on the window at Carson Pirie Scott’s State Street store lets pedestrians know the store closed for business on April 15, 1992, because of the basement flooding that plagued downtown buildings in Chicago.
