A water main broke in Chicago yesterday at 4am. How do I know this? Why do we care?

Because it happened outside my hotel window.

I ignored the sirens at first thinking that country life had made me more sensitive to city noises. At 5am I realized the power in my room was out and then realized the power in the hotel was out. Looking out the window I could see water and mud flowing down the streets. Over the next couple of hours I received phone calls at half hour intervals from other wedding guest all updating on the situation. At 7am Holly called to tell me that they were shutting all the water off and the emergency lights had failed. I got up and filled 3 cups with water knowing I would need it later.

At 8am I gave up trying to sleep, got dressed and packed. I brushed my teeth with the water I stored in the cups. At that point I was kicking myself for not showering the night before. Holly's brother William called to volunteer his services to get me downstairs since I was on the 7th floor. That poor guy was on the 11th and had been shuttling wedding guests' luggage from the 12th through 3rd floors. Nevermind having to get his 80 year old grandmother down so she could get to the airport. He showed up and took my bag along with the last of the other's. I made my way down the stairs in almost total darkness. It got worse the farther down we went and on the 2nd floor the stairs led no where. I followed two other people down the hall to find the other staircase. Finally as we got to the first floor the hotel employees were shining their tiny flashlights on the steps. By this point the lobby had been pumped out but it was a wreck.

Holly's new husband was running a shuttle service to their apartment with luggage and guests who needed to shower. After breakfast I went there too and took a quick shower since their water heater was pretty taxed after all the others.

Slowly the guests left for the airport and Holly got to leave for her honeymoon. Her mom, William and I were on the same flight back to New England so we hung out until it was time to leave. I did squeeze in a 45 minute nap but I'm not sure how much good it did. I was completely comatose on the plane and looked like hell when Tom picked me up at the airport at 10pm.

Yesterday was so surreal but I'm getting to the point where I can laugh about it. I slept ten hours last night but still don't feel 100%. I'm not going to let it spoil the weekend which was absolutely wonderful otherwise.

For pics and the newspaper article read on.

"Pipe break closes part of Clark St.
Condo building's garage flooded; hotel evacuated

By M. Daniel Gibbard, Tribune staff reporter. Tribune staff reporter John Biemer contributed to this report
Published December 1, 2003

A water main break early Sunday in the Lincoln Park neighborhood flooded a condo building parking garage, caused the evacuation of a hotel and left a huge hole in North Clark Street that will tie up traffic for days.

The 36-inch concrete pipe burst about 4 a.m. in the 1800 block of North Clark, and crews stopped the flow of water about two hours later, said Tom LaPorte, spokesman for the city's Water Management Department.

Fixing the main and the street will take three or four days, LaPorte said. Until then, Clark is closed between Lincoln Avenue and Wisconsin Street. North of LaSalle Drive and south of Dickens Avenue, Clark is open only to local traffic.

Vehicles, including the Chicago Transit Authority's No. 22 and No. 36 buses, are being rerouted one block east to Stockton Drive, LaPorte said.

LaPorte declined to speculate on what caused the main to break, other than to note that it was early in the cold season for it to have been temperature-related.

Such pipes are designed to last 100 years, but LaPorte said the one that failed Sunday was laid in 1973. He said city engineers would take out and study the broken section to determine the problem.

"Mains this size breaking is fairly uncommon," he said.

After the pipe burst on Clark Street, the force of the water carried tons of sand out from under the street, and as the water drained into storm sewers, it left buckled pavement and a beachlike scene along Clark and in the grass on the western edge of Lincoln Park.

Shortly after noon, as city workers worked to excavate the main with a backhoe on the east side of Clark, an adjacent western section collapsed. That left a crater large even by Chicago pothole standards: more than 20 feet long, stretching nearly curb to curb across the four-lane street.

The rupture sent water rushing into the below-ground parking garage at Hemingway House, 1850 N. Clark. Building managers declined to comment, but firefighters at the scene and several residents who did not wish to be identified said dozens of cars on the lower level of the two-level garage were submerged up past their hoods.

The garage can hold up to 80 cars but was not full, residents said. Officials told them it would likely be a day before they could move their cars from the non-flooded upper level because the sinkhole is too close to the garage's entrance ramp.

Crews from the Chicago Fire Department and Water Management were still pumping water out of the lower level at midday, and it was not known when the water-logged cars might be moved.

Commonwealth Edison Co. spokeswoman Meg Amato said about 500 customers lost power when water flooded a service vault. Electricity was restored by 10:15 a.m., she said.

Water service in the area was not affected because the main does not directly supply water to buildings, LaPorte said.

Another victim of the power outage and water damage was the Days Inn at 1816 N. Clark, where guests were forced to leave after the lobby and basement were flooded and the power went out.

A manager at the hotel said she hoped to reopen for business Monday.

Around the corner from the hotel, Bar Louie manager Dan Schaal was overseeing the cleanup effort. He said the wooden bar was damaged by water and that the business might not be ready to reopen for a week, depending on the condition of the floor.

But next door, Old Town Sundries and Liquor owner Prakash Patel was feeling somewhat more industrious. He was open for business by 10:30 a.m., before the floors were even close to being dry.

Despite 6 inches of water on the floor when he arrived at 7 a.m., "I know I'd be opening today," he said.

Copyright © 2003, Chicago Tribune