This is a pretty cool story. From 1992.
http://www.granta.com/Magazine/108/Soaked/1
http://www.granta.com/Magazine/108/Soaked/1
Now comes the distinctive Chicagoan twist: cable television workers down in the tunnels a couple of months later actually saw them leak, videotaped it oozing mud and water, and sent the urgent evidence to City Hall.The staff of Mayor Daley – Hizzoner the Second – promptly set out…to take bids from other private companies, to see who could patch things up the most cheaply.Three months later, the tunnel walls at last collapsed, and overnight the river came pouring in.