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Time - Man of the Year
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Time_Man_of_the_Year_Compact_Publishing_3YX-Disc-1_Compact_Publishing_1993.iso
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1992-09-10
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THE WEEK, Page 14NATIONWindy City? Wet Is More Like It
Goldfish invade Marshall Field's as a flood soaks downtown
Chicago
As catastrophes go, the Great Chicago Flood had its redeeming
moments. Alewives, gizzard shad, goldfish, rock bass and black
crappies were among the malodorous trespassers at city hall,
Marshall Field's department store and dozens of other downtown
buildings. The water level in some basements rose as high as 40
feet. Elevators stopped, computer systems crashed, and workers
cleared out. Both the Chicago Board of Trade and the Mercantile
Exchange closed down, crippling the city's financial nerve
center. Even the IRS took pity, offering affected taxpayers a
week's extension (just write "Chicago Flood" at the top of the
return).
The monstrous mess began to develop Monday morning, when
more than 250 million gallons of cold, murky Chicago River
water began washing through the unsuspecting city. Rivers
normally flood by overflowing; the Chicago River underflowed,
as water whirlpooled down a car-size hole in the riverbed and
into a tunnel running underneath. Perplexed Chicagoans soon
learned that the mysterious tunnel was part of a 60-mile network
built at the turn of the century to move coal and other goods
on small freight trains. Largely unused for almost 40 years,
these tunnels now seemed tailor-made for draining the river and
its contents directly into downtown basements. Said police
superintendent Matt Rodriguez, who happened to be starting his
first day at his new job last Monday: "I knew there were big
problems when we got reports of fish in basements."
Fearing electrical shorts, the city evacuated thousands of
people from more than 21 square blocks in the Loop and cut power
to nearly 200 buildings. Meanwhile, befuddled city workers
poured gravel, sandbags, cement and even a few mattresses into
the river in a low-tech effort to plug the leak. At week's end
power was restored to most buildings, but engineers warned that
it could take as long as two weeks to drain the tunnels. The
big fear: pressure created by the water could weaken the
tunnels. If they collapsed when emptied, the city would
experience something resembling an earthquake.
Despite breathless comparisons with the Great Chicago Fire
of 1871, few Chicagoans ever got wet last week, and none were
seriously injured during the evacuation. But even after all the
water is drained, the city is likely to remain swamped by
lawsuits for months. The cost, including lost business, could
easily top $1 billion, and the repair work could take months.
On Tuesday, Mayor Richard M. Daley fired John LaPlante, the
acting transportation chief, after learning that the city had
known about a leak in the tunnel for at least two months but had
failed to act on it. The original repair estimate amounted to
$10,000, or a savings of at least $999,990,000.