‘Isolated incident’: MassDOT officials say drainage clog caused Ted Williams tunnel flooding

BOSTON — MassDOT officials say a drainage clog is to blame for the three feet of water that flooded the Ted Williams Tunnel.

400 feet of roadway was impacted by approximately 130,000 gallons of standing water that crossed two lanes of traffic.

That surface water runoff flooded the I-90 connector tunnel at the 90-93 split around 7 p.m. on Wednesday night.

Highway Administrator Jonathan Gulliver said the clog happened about 15 to 20 feet into the line and took more than four hours to clear.

“It really being into the drain. That’s a bigger problem for us,” said Gulliver at a Thursday news conference. “This one, where it was in the line, means we had to do surgery on the drainage system to get to it.”

Gulliver believes the recent drought may have played a role in the drainage clog that happened as Boston was soaked with about 4 inches of rain.

“Having a drought is one of those things that I think hindered us instead of helped,” explained Gulliver. “Often when you have regular rainstorms, things clear out. When you don’t, there’s a lot of road debris that comes off cars and comes off trucks on a regular basis that ends up building out.”

Gulliver said tunnel drains are regularly maintained and were cleared within the last two to three weeks.

He said crews will be looking at drainage structures over the next few days through the weekend to make sure that there’s nothing that they missed.

He referred to the tunnel flooding as an ‘isolated incident’ and a ‘rare occurrence’.

However, Gulliver said climate change is causing concerns about future roadway flooding events across Massachusetts.

“You only have to look at the last few winters to see things have changed,” he added. “We’re getting a lot more rain events and a lot more icing events every year, and we need to treat our infrastructure as a result.”

Several videos posted to social media on Wednesday night showed the situation that drivers faced head on before the tunnel was closed to traffic.

“We were like, this is kind of deep, and I don’t know why they’re letting people go through right now,” said driver Jeffrey Richardson. “You could definitely have kayaks in it!”

Richardson said he was sitting in traffic for a while and figured there must’ve been an accident ahead.

He couldn’t believe what he was seeing when he encountered the flooding inside the tunnel while driving his Tesla.

“This could’ve been a major ordeal,” he said. “Everything requires maintenance in life. It doesn’t matter what it is.”

This is a developing story. Check back for updates as more information becomes available.

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