Re: [Texascavers] Sewer-lunking in Australia :

[Robert Tait]

Ah... the memories
For reasons lost in obscurity left behind in the early '70s, we called it
sewerhopping, something me and a couple of buddies
"invented".  I can still pull manhole lids off with my
fingers (one finger in each hand goes into the little hole, tense and
lift).  We started in the pipe behind  the house in Dayton,
Ohio. It was 5' in diameter.  The game was to put a marker by each
manhole, usually a rolled up piece of paper stuck in one of the holes.
Then.. .we went topside and tried to find it.  No compass. No tape.
Simply never occurred to us.  Dead reckoning. Waisted many an hour
of my youth perusing that pipe.  Rain was not a huge deal as we
could always clime up to street level at a manhole, and push the lid if
we had to. It never was a serious problem. The pipe did neck down the
further up it got.  It always had water flowing in it. I think we
found the source, but don't recall now.
The real risk, and one I was oblivious to, and never experienced, was
some idiot dumping gas or other solvents into the storm sewer. 
Later, one of my high schools buddies dumped several gallons of gasoline
in the storm sewer (such innocent time), in the process of fixing his
Volkswagon.  The result was a 3 block long pipe bomb that blew lids
off manholes, and made quite a noise. 
Later, I built a periscope that would fit through the holes in the
manhole covers. It was crude and everything was backwards, but it
worked.  Version II had a mirror on a flexible hinge so when a car
ran over it, we could just bend it back.
It turns out that part of the Miami Erie Canal fed into the Miami river
and long ago was covered and covered into a storm sewer.  You gain
access to the old canal by boat. It's a bit scary, as there are giant
metal shutters over the opening to prevent back flooding in case of high
water.   You can canoe in about 1/4 mile then it breaks into
three large walking passages. Brick walls in places, concrete in otheres,
as I recall.  One stretch about 30' long,  (the wall was warm
there) was covered with cockroaches.  In another stretch, there were
30 or so Coy swimming in the water. 
After exploring for several hours we canoed to discover that a fellow had
started fishing over the opening. An elderly guy.  We came shooting
out, and asked which way to Cincinnati. He stared fore a second, and then
just pointed down stream.
Oh Yah, during heavy rains the culvert behind the house would fill to
about a foot from the top of the pipe. We would pop the closes manhole
and drop into the pipe and ride out to the creek. It was maybe 60'. 

Maybe Television and computer games ARE good things. My kids never tried
anything that stupid.
Rob..

At 04:51 PM 1/22/2008, jerryat...@aol.com wrote:
Tunnel vision is costing
lives



-
Visit our website: http://texascavers.com
To unsubscribe, e-mail: texascavers-unsubscr...@texascavers.com
For additional commands, e-mail: texascavers-h...@texascavers.com

Re: [Texascavers] Sewer-lunking in Australia :

[Don Cooper]

That reminds me of my first "wild caving" experiences.  Shreveport Louisiana
is pretty far from any natural caves - but as a kid, me and my friends used
to go exploring in underground storm water runoff conduits.  Between open
sections of concrete ditches, some tunnels would go for hundreds of feet
underneath buildings and roads and some would bifurcate into smaller,
scarier crawl ways.
It was a great place to find spiders, snakes, dead animals and assorted
flotsam.
-WaV

On Jan 22, 2008 3:51 PM,  wrote:

>  Tunnel vision is costing lives
>
> By Kara Lawrence
>
> January 22, 2008 06:00am
> Article from: [image: The Daily 
> Telegraph]
>
>

[Texascavers] Sewer-lunking in Australia :

[JerryAtkin]

 
Tunnel vision is costing lives
By Kara Lawrence 
January 22, 2008 06:00am 
Article from:  (http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/) 
 
WHEN it rains, no drains. That is rule No.1 in the "art" of  drain-exploring 
as outlined in the manifesto of Michael Carlton, aka  Predator.

 
It is a short, snappy saying which could have prevented the tragedy which  
befell three young people who were trapped in a Sydney stormwater drain on  
Sunday.  
A sudden squall of rain struck, flooding the drain and killing a woman and  
man aged in their 20s. Another man was lucky to escape with his life after 
being  washed from the drain into Lurline Bay, off Sydney's Eastern Beaches.  
Carlton, who died himself about five years ago, pioneered a secret  
underground movement in Australia – one now referred to as urban exploration, 
or  urbex 
for short.  
But it was a slow and creeping death from cancer – not violent accident –  
that claimed Carlton's life earlier this decade.  
Despite his love of illegally exploring stormwater drains and other tunnels,  
Carlton knew that sudden injury and death stalked those who followed this  
dangerous pursuit.  
One of the founding members of Sydney's Cave Clan in the early 1990s, Carlton 
 had explored 147 drains in six states, as well as rail tunnels, abandoned  
bunkers and other forbidden underground areas.  
Using this experience, he penned a tome of advice addressing virtually every  
conceivable danger in his "sprawling manifesto on the art of drain 
exploring".  
In the document, which is dated 1999 and posted on the internet, he advised  
on how to avoid being trapped in the dark, succumbing to toxic gases and  
encountering nasty microbes from filthy water or nesting bats.  
Yet Carlton saved his most important advice to his followers for the final  
chapter, aptly entitled: "Oh s..., it's raining, help!"  
"A large catchment can dump a couple of megalitres of water into a drain in a 
 few minutes," Carton wrote.  
"This and its debris (wood planks, old refrigerators, bottles, etc) will  
travel down the drain with frightening speed ... 50km/h and higher.  
"You will be continually bashed around by the turbulence and totally  
powerless to grab anything at such a speed if it catches you.  
"If you don't drown you will probably suffer serious physical and  
psychological trauma."  
It is a terrifying insight into what must have confronted the three who were  
exploring the Kingsford stormwater drain, nicknamed The Fortress by Carlton  
himself.  
The Fortress holds a memorial shrine to Carlton and the Cave Clan website  
yesterday held a posting by someone who noted the irony.  
"Please tell me those poor kids didn't die visiting Predator's memorial,"  
said the posting.  
As sudden heavy rain struck Sydney about 6.30pm on Sunday, the rain would  
have poured into the drain and begun the tumultuous journey to the sea –  
specifically Lurline Bay south of Sydney – where it emptied via a large grate  
with 
vertical metal bars.  
The first sign of trouble would have been the subtle movement of air in the  
still dry area. The whisper of distant moving water would have gradually built 
 to a roar.  
Then the three would have been swept from their feet – bashed by debris as  
they struggled uselessly to fight the water. Finally the metal bars against  
which the water rushed would have suddenly stopped their progress.  
The survivor, whether by his own efforts or pure luck, managed to pass  
through these grates and into the sea, before being rescued by a heroic local  
teenager who risked his own life to do so.  
"Predator" made the gap in the bars with a car jack, as he revealed in his  
own manifesto, which detailed his exploration of the seaside end of the drain.  
The dangers of such pursuits would boggle most minds, but a then-member of  
Cave Clan gave an insight into their odd attraction during a 2006 interview  
posted online yesterday.  
The member, Silogen (members rarely use their real named for fear of being  
prosecuted), said it was a case of feeling unique, of wanting to "see what 
other  people don't see".  
"It's like caving except it's caving with the novelty of being below  
suburbia," Silogen said.  
He said numerous Sydney landmarks had hidden troves for the intrepid beneath  
them.  
"It's just amazing being underground. It's amazing being under the Sydney  
Opera House and, you know, paddling out of a stormwater drain that comes out  
(underneath) the Opera House," he said.  
"It's amazing being in abandoned cable tunnels that run under The Domain or  
walking through the subway tunnels underneath St James in the middle of the  
night," he said.  
"Silogen" also said that, while urbex involved trespassing, there was no  
malice.  
He also said there had been no injuries among Cave Clanners in almost 20  
years because "we know our stuff".  
It is unclear if the woman and man killed on Sunday were Cave Clan members –  
but various postings on caving websites