Maya Visits The 99 Tunnel On Opening Day

Key Takeaways

I might have assigned him I'm at the start of the viaduct tunnel and I'm going to go and stop I'm going to go check it out and see and tell you all the part and I'll tell you all the parts [Music] there's light like the tunnel is not dark Annan makes it look like it's just a normal tunnel right now the air feels really breathable but in and there's those book guys there's no cars and if there were cars and there were so much exhaust from the cars then then we would be stuck in all this exhaust and that's why we're going they have those fans the fans are to blow the exhaust out and eternal it there's a slope that goes downhill and then that and then all the water goes down and then there are some drains and then all the water goes into the drains there are exit signs on the wall a tunnel and it says and then appoint arrows to which way that I did it hi what is your name and what do you do my name is Greg Hauser and I drive tunnels I've done that my whole career I'm a civil engineer and I was the deputy project manager on the Alaskan Way Viaduct tunnel and responsible for driving the tunnel well it actually took us we launched the first time we launched was in July July 30th of 2013 and we didn't hold through until April 4 of 2016 and so it took us an extra two years to do it because we had a problem with the machine and we had to fix it or going to China if there if the water gets in the tunnel or if it's rains that either end and it gets in here there's a big pump system pumps it out you and you if you walk all the way down to the low part of the tunnel there's a system of pumps in there and it pumps it out at both ways at both ends and it pumps it all out of the tunnel all right there's at both ends of the tunnel you should have seen it up here with a big yellow smokestacks are and those are exhaust stacks is what they are there's an Operations Building there's a North Operations building there's a South operation building they'll be managed 24/7 365 days a year they have people in there with monitors there's all kinds of video cameras in here and there's heat sensors in here and if anything happens if there's any kind of an emergency they would send someone in to rescue the disabled vehicle or if there was a fire or anything like that these louvers on the other side would open up and there's big exhaust fans at each end that each each one of them there's four in each one of them one for each smokestack and they move a hundred and sixty thousand cubic feet per minute of air that's a whole hot musket blow but it's up but they're they're big big exhaust fans at the south end you can walk right up to him and there's there's windows there where you can see them and they're huge and if there was a fire say there was a fire at this end the other end would blow so it blows fresh air in and this end would would the the louvers would open up and they would suck the air out all the smoke and stuff would go out and it would go off through those smokestacks well it's quite an operation it's really if there was an earthquake this tunnel is designed to withstand up to a 9.0 magnitude earthquake which only comes one in every two 2,600 years something like that and it's it's really a very safe place to be there's enough there's two standby generators one at each end there's two sources of power for it so if there was any problems here there would be standby generators to take over when they rebuilt and something I didn't know until just just now reading all my cheat sheets for it that the the the new dock wall that they built for the new along the waterfront and that prevents any tsunamis from coming in here unless it would have to be a major tsunami and again like a two thousand year event to overcome it and to put any water in here and if that's the case then then all the pumps would turn on and they would pump all the water out so if the big one comes the best place to be is right here in this tunnel what is your next project well right now I'm almost retired and I say almost retired I've been doing this a lot of years you know I'm I'm old I'm 71 years old and I've been doing this for over 42 years and consulting on some jobs in California and some jobs on the East Coast as far as in Boston Massachusetts in Washington DC and in Alexandria Virginia so I'm consulting on those but I'm only working 10 to 20 hours a week and that's more than I want to work my most fun tunnel was the one just before this I came here from Chicago I was working on the tunnels there and I came here for the bright water system and we had the west section of the the three tunnels for the bright water system which was a system of outfall tunnels for King County and King County built a new wastewater treatment plant in Woodinville and we had the western section of that and then we also negotiated but the contractor who did the central section he broke down and we negotiated with King County and we went and and drove their section of tunnel ten thousand feet of it and it was a it was a great job it really was it was we were tunnel we were tunnel project of the year for the International tunneling society and oh yeah well they're absolutely there's such a thing international tunneling Society and there's several sonic tolling societies I'm I'm a member of the underground Contractors Association of the Society of mining engineers and we're the premier group and in this country for for tunneling and and if when when the world tunneling Congress was here we're the ones that did that sponsored that one at our convention in San Francisco what what do you think of El Chapo and his tunneling ability well he's very creative and it got him out of prison at one time but it's it he doesn't meet the standards that we usually designed - what do you think of Elon Musk and his tunnels I hope the Elan musk comes up with a way to do this the you know he's come up with a way to send spaceships up and bring him back and reuse him if he can come up with a better way to drive tunnels I hope he does that would be great any advancement in tunnels to me is a good thing and we need more tunnels we should have all there should be a lot more tunnels here in Seattle and we should have more tunnels here so you know I think it's a good thing I'm hoping he comes up with something you