If a flood swamped subway or commuter-rail tunnels, it could devastate an urban area\u2019s buried electrical cables and foul up transportation for days or weeks. That\u2019s not just some fantasy-based, apocalyptic scenario dreamed up to scare us: It actually happened. Twenty years ago, in Chicago, a small leak in an unused freight tunnel expanded beneath the city and started a flood, which eventually gushed through the entire tunnel system. A quarter-million people were evacuated from the buildings above, nearly $2 billion in damages accrued, and it took 6 weeks to pump the tunnels dry.<\/p>\n

Is there a way to prevent such a disaster? They don\u2019t make corks or bottle-stoppers that big. Or do they? \u00a0Building Blog<\/a> reports that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s “Resilient Tunnel Project<\/a>”<\/p>\n

…has come up with a prototype 35,000-gallon “plug,” or “enormous inflatable cylinder,” in the words of PhysOrg.com<\/em><\/a>, one that is “tunnel-shaped with rounded capsule-like ends” and “can be filled with water or air in minutes to seal off a section of tunnel before flooding gets out of control.”<\/p>\n

The idea is to prevent underground floods from taking down whole subway systems or otherwise destroying subterranean logistical networks, such as telecom cables.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

One of the companies that helped design and test the plug has many years of experience with puncture-proof materials: It designed space suits for NASA.<\/p>\n

According to Homeland Security,<\/p>\n

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