Author: Riley Hooper
Perhaps you’ve heard rumors about them. Perhaps you’ve been in them yourself. Or perhaps you’ve never even heard their stories. But the Oxy tunnels, one of our College’s most mysterious secrets, are real. And behind all that mystique and intrigue, are the facts, a history and danger-not to mention a whole lot of pipes and wires.
Facilities Environmental Health and Safety Manager Bruce Steele speculated that the tunnels were built around 1914, when Johnson and Fowler were constructed, because the tunnels run under these buildings. Additional portions of the tunnels have been added to reach new buildings and renovations across campus.
Specifically, the tunnels run from Thorne and Haines-with a branch over to Weingart- under Johnson and Fowler, to the Library and to Wylie. There are several points of entrance to these areas, however when questioned as to the exact location of entrances, Steele declined to answer. He said that the entrances are for “maintenance personnel only.”
The tunnels vary in size and are rectangular in cross section. Steele estimated that the narrower sections are about five by six feet and the larger sections are about eight by seven feet. Piping takes up varying amounts of room throughout the tunnels. In some sections, the tunnels are even impassible because of the piping. “The tunnels are definitely a hardhat area with all of the bump hazards and low clearances in places where piping crosses,” Steele said.
The tunnels are currently used for utility distribution, such as piping for cold and hot water supplies, heating, and sewage, in addition to wiring for telecommunications and computers. Authorized personnel include facilities technicians, supervisors, managers and hired contractors, telecommunications contractors, and ITS contractors. They access the tunnels several times a month as needed for regular maintenance, repairs and installations.
Steele himself has gone in the tunnels multiple times, as he used to do safety inspections at least once a year. These days Steele still enters the tunnels on occasion, “I sometimes do attendant duties when I have a contractor doing a project or when no one else is available.”
To enter the tunnels, one must attain authorized entry. The first step is to fill out a “Tunnel Entry” form from Steele’s office. Steele said entrants must be designated by name, and must also designate an attendant, who does not enter the tunnel, but who will have simultaneous radio or voice contact with both the Facilities Management front office (i.e. base) and the entrants while in the tunnel. Campus Safety is also advised beforehand as to the nature of the entry and the exact location. In the case of an emergency, the attendant calls base, and base will call Campus Safety so officers can escort emergency response personnel to the site.
These precautions must be taken because the tunnels are hazardous, and therefore defined as a “log-entry confined space” under Section 5157 of Title 8, the General Industrial Safety Orders of the California Code of Regulation (CCR). Examples of other areas on campus with this designation are the gasoline underground storage tank, all manholes, and the Keck workshop scenery pit.
Steele said probable tunnel hazards include: head injuries from overhead pipes, trip/fall hazards from irregular flooring, exposure to asbestos, or dangers from the utilities themselves such as: burns from broken/damaged steam pipes, and fatal shock from high voltage power lines, transformers, and switches.
Even taking the proper precautions, entrance of emergency response personnel would be difficult due to pipes, low ceilings, and tight entry points. If an emergency were to occur under unauthorized entry, this difficulty would be multiplied. Without radio communication to facilities and Campus Safety, it would take much longer to reach an emergency response team, to locate the victims and to transport them to a medical facility.
Such hazards have prompted the Facilities Department to take heavy precautions in restricting entry. “We want the whole Oxy community to appreciate the reasoning behind this and to respect the fact that for your safety [you] do not attempt to enter the tunnels. They are for access by authorized personnel only,” Steele said.
Despite such precautions, unauthorized entry has occured. Steele cited a “cat problem” during the ’90s, when many feral cats lived in the Fowler section of the tunnels. The cats had kittens, and many died of disease. “During the cat years there were very bad flea problems in the tunnels,” Steele said. In his personal collection of “strange & unusual objects from Oxy” Steele actually has a mummified “flat cat” found in the tunnel. “When this kitten died it was atop a high voltage electrical transformer, probably because it was warm there. Other “flat cats” were at one point strewn throughout the crawl space area,” he said.
Other types of “animals” have also gained entry to the tunnels. One current Oxy student entered the tunnels during his first year. He found out about the them from a student who had a family history of Oxy tunnel entry, as both his father and older brother had gone in the tunnels during their time at Oxy. “He had already been down there a couple of times, so he was like, yeah if you guys want to go down with me sometime you can,” he said.
At the time, Fowler was under construction, so the student and his friends gained entry through a bathroom on the first floor of Fowler. “I don’t think there’s an entrance there anymore, but there was when they were doing the construction, so we basically just walked right down into it.”
He took the tunnel from Fowler down to the library before returning. “The other direction goes down to Thorne, but we didn’t go that way. There’s a place down by the quad where you can turn right or left, so we went left to the library,” he said.
This student’s accomplice had explored the tunnels even farther and shared stories of his experiences. “He told me that one time he went from the tunnels into the library. It ends in an actual room in the bottom floor,” he said. The accomplice also said that there was a place in the quad where you could poke your head above ground.
“I think people have this perception of it being like this big underground tunnel, but it’s actually pretty narrow and small, you’re kind of crouching and there’s all these little wires,” he said. Aside from electrical wiring and some water, the student said that there were names and different things written on the walls of the tunnel. “There’s a bunch of stuff written on the walls from like the 1950s like ‘Joe and Bob were here’ and ‘class of 56’ and a bunch of writing so you can find a lot of the people who have been there just by checking the names.”
All in all, the student said he was not too enthusiastic about his tunnel exploration. “It has this mystique, but it’s not that interesting. Honestly, it seemed kind of dangerous to me. I wouldn’t really recommend doing it, I was kind of claustrophobic and it’s mainly just a bunch of electrical stuff,” he said.
Nevertheless, the mystique and intrigue of the Oxy tunnels lives on. Despite the efforts of Facilities to hinder unauthorized entry, students continue to pursue information and access into the tunnels, despite the dangers outlined by the College.
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