Our crew is about to do a deep dive into an Arizona storm drain

I’ve been with the Storm Drain Exploration and Preservation Society since high school. It’s a global network of people who explore storm drains, with local crews doing the actual exploring. <br><br>I hadn’t been active with the Society for a while, but when I moved to Phoenix, Arizona, I hooked up with a crew based in Tempe. Most of us had been together for a while, and we kept in contact even when we weren’t active with our explorations.<br><br>We had done a lot of Arizona storm drains, some of which were pretty cool. We had explored storm drains by Phoenix’s Sky Harbor Airport, where we saw a lot of cool birds and had a clear view of the planes coming in to land. We explored some tunnels that drained water away from Tempe’s Sun Devil Stadium, and walked across the high catwalks with nothing but a railing between us and the grid below. We once entered a storm sewer that flowed right into a Tempe canal, a cool twisted concrete tunnel we followed by boat. And once we explored an abandoned underground parking system almost as large as a city subway.<br><br>But the most interesting of all were the undocumented storm drains. Drains that had no blue prints, that hadn’t been mapped yet, or that were so remote that nobody had bothered with them. Some were abandoned and collapsed, while others were large and hidden entirely underground. We found a really cool one that looked like an old mine shaft, and once we found a sewer that had collapsed and resembled a miniature Grand Canyon.<br><br>Our crew was a mix of explorers, scientists and thrill seekers. We were a tight crew, and we knew each other’s strengths and weaknesses. <br><br>So when I heard that the Society was looking to map an abandoned storm sewer system around sixty miles northwest of Phoenix, I knew that this was a chance to explore something really cool. This system was on Society maps, but it was an old line tracing that had been drawn in the 1950s. Nobody had explored it as far as we knew, and everything we knew was based on old records from the 1950s.<br><br>I texted our crew to see if they were interested, and everyone was super excited. We talked about it and made plans for a day when we could all get together and do the dive. We settled on a day in late September, when we were all free and had everything we needed. I rented a large truck, a couple of us got some of the gear that we needed, and we all met up at a gas station in Wickenburg, a small town about an hour from Phoenix.<br><br>We got there almost at dawn. We could see the sun rising above the surrounding hills, and we knew that the day would be hot. Arizona had just started getting cool after months of extreme heat, and the coming winter rain would wash out the storm drains. We had to do this before the winter, and we were cutting it close.<br><br>The Society knew nothing about this particular system of tunnels. When rainwater drainage was first mapped in the Phoenix area over a hundred years ago, a common approach was to connect the storm drains to the washes and rivers. Wickenburg was right on the Hassayampa River, a dry sand riverbed that flows during extreme rain. <br><br>Minus the gnats, it wasn’t too bad. The desert here was absolutely beautiful. We could see cholla cactus, paloverde trees and even a pair of Gila monsters. But there was no sign of the storm drain entrances that had been marked on the map, and we hadn’t been given much information at all.<br><br>Finally, we found an entrance to the tunnel. It was covered with a piece of moss-covered concrete that served as the storm drain inlet. We moved the concrete and walked in, flashlight beam cutting through the darkness. A warm warm breeze flowed through the tunnel, and a small stream of brown liquid ran along the side of the passage, almost like a river. <br><br>This tunnel was by far the most beautiful tunnel we’d explored so far. But it was growing gradually warmer, and the air was thick with moisture. We knew that this meant we were heading into water, and most of us didn’t want that. A few of us had waders or waterproof boots, but the rest of us were going to get wet.<br><br>As we rounded a curve in the tunnel, we saw a glimmer of light. It was faint, but we could see it. We rounded another curve, and the light was brighter. It was a blue glow, and it illuminated the tunnel.<br><br>Suddenly, we heard the sound of rushing water. It was like thunder, but water was rushing past us and we were getting wet. The air was thick and the water was getting deeper. We had to be careful not to slip, because if we fell we would get washed away.<br><br>Suddenly, two people were swept away by water. We saw them floating down into the blue light, and we realized we had to get out. We turned and ran, the sound of rushing water getting louder. <br><br>We were fighting the current, which made it harder. The water was up to our thighs, and the current getting stronger. We had to help each other so we didn’t fall.<br><br>“Grab onto something,” someone yelled. “If we get swept away, we’re gonna die.”<br><br>One of us grabbed onto something, and we all held each other. The water was up to our waist, and rushing past us hard. We were really scared. Suddenly, the water started to get shallower. We were fighting the water, and finally we were out of it. <br><br>Except the two who had been swept away. We were devastated, and we could hear their screams echoing off the walls. We tried to go back in the water, but the current was too fast. We knew they were dead.<br><br>We walked back to the entrance, back to the sunlight. We were all in shock. We didn’t talk at all as we made our way back to our truck, and back to Phoenix.<br><br>The two who were swept away died in that tunnel. They were good people, and we couldn’t believe that they were gone. But we had to tell people about it. If people went in there thinking it was some cool tunnel to explore, the same thing would happen to them.