Photo: Office of the Mayor/Mayor Eric Adams/X
From the opening of the Queens-Midtown Tunnel in 1940 until it was swamped during Hurricane Sandy in 2012, it had never flooded. The storm damage to the tube was “unprecedented,” an MTA engineer told the trade journal Tunnel Business Magazine, and the agency had to close the tunnel for ten days. In the subsequent months, it saw major repairs, and the state installed big swinging doors at the ends to close it against the next storm surge.
Which works great until some jabroni drills a hole through the roof.
Yesterday afternoon, a contractor doing preparatory work for the next phase of the East River Esplanade did exactly that, putting a two-and-a-half-inch hole through the tunnel’s cast-iron casing near the U.N.. The water there, officials said, is about 50 feet deep, and the drill had gone another 50 feet into the riverbed when it hit the top of the tunnel’s south tube. Videos showed water cascading through what seemed to be a vent in the ceiling. The MTA first described the problem, in error, as a water-main break. The @whatisnewyork account on Instagram has video, and correctly observed that you’ve got new fuel for your night terrors:
The MTA got a temporary plug in place within a few hours, and the tube was back open by 5:45 p.m., somewhat mitigating the evening traffic snarl. The unnamed team with the drill, reportedly from a company called Warren George, will have a Thanksgiving-table story to tell for the rest of their lives.
