On Monday morning of April 13, 1992, in Chicago it happened. A lot of companies wanted to buy mini-cruise ships and use them for tourists. The ships would be moored on the Chicago River. So one of the companies sent contractors to pull out the old pilings and put new pilings in the exact same spot. (A piling is a number of telephone poles bundled together that are used to hold up or protect bridges.) But the contractors thought that it would be hard to take the old piling out so they drove the new piling in right next to the old piling. Even though they drove the piling really close to the old piling it punched a hole in a tunnel under where they were working. the tunnel used to be used as a freight tunnel where people pushed carts. Now it's used by companies for electricity and cable. When a worker was inspecting the tunnel he saw a dripping spot and took pictures of it to show the experts. While he was above ground showing the pictures to the experts the flood burst into action, pouring 250 gallons of water a second into the frieght tunnel.
The police evacuated most of the buildings in the Loop (Chicago's downtown area) because they were afraid there might be an electrical shock. The water poured in basements of department stores and buildings.
Then everyone watched as they tried to plug it up with balloons and gravel. They ended up pumping all the water out and the contractors got sued by the city of Chicago.
The flood lasted for three days, but it was several months before things were back to normal. The cost of the flood was $1.95 billion.
Go back to the Water in Chicago's Community page.