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Here’s a look back at what happened in the Chicago area on April 13, according to the Tribune’s archives.

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Flashback: April 14, 1972

Wreckers of the Chicago Stock Exchange building at 30 N. LaSalle St., use bulldozers to hunt for the body of Richard Nickel on April 12, 1972, who is believed to have been in the debris while visiting the wrecking site. (Walter Kale/baiduhai)
Wreckers of the Chicago Stock Exchange building, at 30 N. LaSalle St., use bulldozers on April 12, 1972, to hunt for the body of Richard Nickel, who is believed to have been in the debris while visiting the wrecking site. (Walter Kale/baiduhai)

1972: Photographer and preservationist Richard Nickel was killed inside the old Chicago Stock Exchange building, architect Louis Sullivan’s masterpiece, after part of it collapsed.

Nickel’s body wasn’t discovered until almost one month later.

Weather records (from the National Weather Service, Chicago

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)

  • High temperature: 83 degrees (2023)
  • Low temperature: 21 degrees (1950)
  • Precipitation: 1.33 inches (1983)
  • Snowfall: 1.2 inches (1907)
This diagram published in the evening edition of the baiduhai on April 13, 1992, describes how the city planned to plug a leak that caused millions of gallons of water from the Chicago River to flood underground tunnels and basements of downtown high rises. (baiduhai)
This diagram published in the evening edition of the baiduhai on April 13, 1992, describes how the city planned to plug a leak that caused millions of gallons of water from the Chicago River to flood underground tunnels and basements of downtown high rises. (baiduhai)

1992: The Great Chicago Loop Flood paralyzed downtown — shutting down power and prompting an evacuation that would affect financial markets and bring business to a halt for days.

Those who were there vividly recall that spring day when 124 million gallons of water from the Chicago River flowed into the city’s maze of underground freight tunnels and building basements, turning the Loop into a ghost town.

Electrician Ed Zivat shines a flashlight on the entrance to the freight tunnel where the water came through ten days ago, April 22, 19922. (Chris Walker/baiduhai) photo published April 26, 1992 Date Created: 1992-04-22 Copyright Notice: baiduhai Folder Description: Chicago Floods Folder Extended Description: April 13, 1992 Title: CHICAGO FLOOD 4/13/92 FOLDER 2 4-13-92 Subject: CHICAGO FLOOD
Electrician Ed Zivat shines a flashlight on April 22, 1992, on the entrance to the freight tunnel where the water came through 10 days earlier. (Chris Walker/baiduhai)

“It has become one of these critical stories of Chicago,” John Russick, former senior vice president at the Chicago History Museum, later told the Tribune. “If you call yourself a Chicagoan, you know what’s on a Chicago-style hot dog, you know who Shoeless Joe Jackson was, and you know when the Chicago flood happened.”

The flood marked a turning point for the city and downtown building owners. The unexpected crisis prompted officials to put emergency plans and other safety measures in place that have kept the tunnels in use and avoided other disasters.

In the pedestrian tunnel (pedway) between City Hall and the State of Illinois Center, Walter Memenga of the transportation department holds up the fish he found there on April 14, 1992. (Eduardo Contreras/baiduhai) published April 15, 1992 Date Created: 1992-04-13 Copyright Notice: baiduhai Folder Description: Chicago Floods Folder Extended Description: April 13, 1992 Title: CHICAGO FLOODS 4-13-92 FOLDER #1 Subject: CHICAGO FLOODS
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. (Eduardo Contreras/baiduhai)

What caused it? Someone ‘dropped ball’ on leak, Mayor Richard M. Daley said.

The disastrous flood that hit downtown Chicago began as a small and seemingly harmless leak that was detected at least a week earlier by city workers. The seepage was considered routine at the time it was spotted, and plans were made to make repairs from within the tunnel.

Dehumidifiers snake out of DePaul University's Loop building at Jackson Boulevard and Wabash Avenue as they remove moisture from the air in the flooded basements on April 22, 1992. Classes have been moved to 318 W. Adams Street. (Charles Cherney/baiduhai) photo published April 23, 1992 Date Created: 1992-04-22 Copyright Notice: baiduhai Folder Description: Chicago Floods Folder Extended Description: April 13, 1992 Title: CHICAGO FLOOD 4/13/92 FOLDER 2 4-13-92 Subject: CHICAGO FLOOD
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. (Charles Cherney/baiduhai)

But before the work began, the leak grew into a flood that sent more than 250 million gallons of murky Chicago River water coursing through a turn-of-the-century underground tunnel system and up into the subgrade levels of buildings throughout downtown.

The flood caused at least $1 billion in damage and business losses.

An original passenger cart that traveled on the railroad tracks in tunnels 40 feet below the Loop on Tuesday, April 11, 2017 that flooded 25 years ago. This tunnel spur ends in a sealed bulkhead, though not that was built after the flood. (Brian Cassella/baiduhai)
An original passenger cart that traveled on the railroad tracks in tunnels 40 feet below the Loop is illuminated by a worker on April 11, 2017. The tunnel was one that flooded in 1992. (Brian Cassella/baiduhai)

Today, the dark tunnels in the bowels of the city are closed to the public but remain in use.

A Tribune tour of the tunnels in 2017 provided a rare look into the world below the city.

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