A leak that sent torrents of East River water into one of New York City’s busiest tunnels began after a contractor accidentally punctured it.
Workers at Warren George, a New Jersey-based drilling company, bored through the outer casing of the Queens-Midtown tunnel in early September.
The crew had been placed on a barge in the East River as part of their soil sampling work ahead of the planned construction of a riverside esplanade.
While attempting to claim soil samples to determine conditions below the surface for engineers, they drilled through 50 feet of water and then another 50 feet of soil.
Unaware of the tunnel below, they managed to break the cast iron lining of the tunnel, causing water to gush into it.
Traffic began to slow in the tunnel as vehicles moved through the now-waterlogged 1.2-mile tunnel.
After it was discovered that the water was coming from the river, Catherine T. Sheridan, chairwoman of the MTA, ordered the immediate closure of both sides of the river.
Images captured from inside show streams of water shooting from the roof and onto vehicles passing below.
Workers at the Big Apple’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), which owns it, noticed the downpour and at first it seemed like a routine fix.
An initial report said officials had first thought the water was coming from a burst pipe on the Queens side of the tunnel.
A worker decided to test the water with his tongue and discovered that it was salty, indicating that it came from the river above and not from the fresh water in the network.
Traffic began to slow in the tunnel as vehicles moved through the now flooded 1.2 mile tunnel.
After the water was discovered to be coming from the river, Catherine T. Sheridan, chairwoman of the MTA, ordered the immediate closure of both sides of the river.
Sixteen workers were then brought in from a local construction company, and five of them were used to drive a wooden plug into the hole to stop the overflow.
A more permanent solution has since been implemented and engineers designed a steel plate to cover it.
An initial report said officials initially thought the water was coming from a broken water main on the Queens side of the tunnel.
Barge workers then pumped grout back into the hole through a steel tube, which formed a permanent seal when it hardened.
Marouane Temimi An associate professor of engineering at Stevens Institute of Technology said he does have concerns about New York’s undersea tunnels.
he said The New York Times: ‘As a driver, I always worry. A mighty river is above my head and what I am passing through is simply a man-made structure. I could fail.’
Temimi added that man-made mistakes, like the hole in the tunnel, are almost impossible to predict.
He added: ‘We were lucky this time. The hole could have been bigger and the damage could have been more significant.’
According to the outlet, the MTA does not have an estimate of how much the incident cost them.