Midway Airport: The First Seventy-Five Years by Christopher Lynch Lake Claremont Press Phone: 773/583-7800 www.lakeclaremont.com

On July 12, 1957, Midway Airport became flooded when Chicago received 6.24 inches of rain in a 24 hour period, the worse of the storm hitting period between 7 PM Friday, and 2 AM on Saturday. Thousands of passengers were trapped in Midway's terminal as the water rose 6 inches inside the building, knocking out all phone and electricity service. Parts of the runways were covered in 2 feet of water, forcing the cancellation of all flights, while the parking lot was under 4 feet of water. Passengers slept on chairs, luggage and even in grounded planes to keep dry. In an era before cell phones, five radio phones were brought in so that passengers could make phone calls to family members.

Roger Williams, a TWA employee at Midway at the time recounted in an e-mail how tense a time it was, especially after the power went out at 2 PM. “We pulled ground equipment tugs, jeeps, conveyors, up to gate doors which were open, to provide some light”.

Meanwhile, TWA management were anticipating the gridlock that would take place the next day, since Midway was the busiest airport in the nation, yet still submerged under water. Williams remembers:

“About 2 am TWA called for six volunteers and one chief to go to a place we never heard of(at the time - a place called O'Hare Field. We managed to find it about 4 AM. It was all quiet compared to pandemonium we left at Midway. There were no planes on the ground then so we got coffee and sacked out down in bag room, but about daylight (a sunny day) they started coming in, all diversions from Midway. At one time I recall I counted about twelve TWA Constellations and two Martins on ground all over the ramp areas, wherever space existed. (Capital Airlines had an equal number of Viscounts scattered around). The TWA facility there only had two cargo carts and one jeep, so we improvised a system for unloading & loading.”

After putting in a full day at O’Hare, Williams reported back to Midway for the beginning of his full shift at 11: 30 PM, to continue to work on the crisis at Midway.

Although the flood was a tense time, it was not with some levity. A passenger with a portable radio kept up the spirits of some stranded passengers as one couple sloshed through the water doing a waltz. Williams recalled how he and his colleagues dressed in rain gear, were walking past TWA gate 14, when a drunken passenger “ stood up, came to attention and saluted us, calling out very loudly, `I salute you men of the submarine service !’ Everyone within earshot roared.”

sources: Chicago Tribune,
Chicago Daily News 7/13/57
My thanks to Roger Williams for sharing his story of the 1957 flood.