I was walking through a parking garage after work a few days ago and noticed some manholes set into a parking space. Upon close inspection, one of them read "STORM" but seemed to be bolted down. Even so, it made me wonder what it would be like to exit a storm drain and be in an unexpected environment like a parking garage. I've never been led anywhere but the typical creek in the woods or a public park.

I remember a story from some of Michael Carolton's blogs where he exited through a grill in a backyard where a family was playing football. Have you exited a drain somewhere interesting or unusual?

I once popped a hinged hatch style manhole on a college campus right next to a building. I poked my head down there to discover an entire college class and professor looking up at me from their basement classroom where I had just interrupted the lecture! I said, "Sorry, wrong manhole!" and then closed the hatch.

We also used to have a drain here in TN that dead ended in the basement of an active mechanics shop and even had power... Yes, running light bulbs in a storm drain! The room also had incredibly loud stream relief valves that periodically vented pressure from the machinery above. They were deafeningly loud and would scare the crap out of you even when you were expecting it! We once popped the manhole from that room and ended up in the mechanics shop where we promptly set off the loudest burglar alarm I've ever heard. We threw ourselves back down into the manhole and spent the next hour trying to make our way safely back to the drain entrance as quickly as possible.

Astro has a much more well written out story about this place too! I hope she posts that here!

"Sorry, wrong manhole!"

Words I never want to hear under ANY circumstances....

Didn't succeed, but about 4 more kilometers further down this drain...



...we would've come out in one of downtown Seoul's biggest tourist attractions.

Posted by DJ Craig Astro has a much more well written out story about this place too! I hope she posts that here!

Here you go. I'm only going to include the portion of the story with a surprise, unless part I is wanted (they're all pretty long)

MAMU IV: Johnson City Drain - Part II: Old Section April 6, 2012


After we finished playing in Splash country, everyone was pretty exhausted from a long day of exploring so everyone was walking out. At a certain point in the drain it forks. Knowing which fork took us to Splash Country, we had chosen that one. But Craig had told us of some really awesome steam pipes that were at the end of the tunnel in old section. This piqued my interest so I said I wanted to go. Craig said it was entirely worth seeing but it was a bit of a rigorous trek. I took this to mean I should definitely go. Out of the 14 of us who were in the drain that night, only 3 of us wanted to venture into old section.

So as the three amigos, Eschaton, Adventuredog (AD) and I set off to go find these steam pipes. Old section got its namesake due to the fact that since Splash Country had been opened up, this section had been blocked off from water flow into the larger areas. As a result there was a large amount of sediment buildup in the tunnels, with varying amounts of water in them as well.

Eschaton was wearing a pair of chest waders that he been tied off around his waste and AD had a pair of properly fitting thigh waders. Of course I am still just wearing a shirt, some laced knickers and a pair of Adidas running shoes. Something we quickly learned was just how much better the traction and spacing was on the soles of my running shoes than it was on the bottom of the waders.


Within minutes of sludging through the mud and buildup, we come across a large pipe, running laterally through the drain tunnel. The diameter of this pipe much have been about 2 feet and it was about a foot and a half from the sludge, in height. There was not reasonable way to get around this. You were either going to risk falling off of it or risk falling under it. I had chosen to go over it, so I handed AD my bag and got over it with very little issue. He handed me my stuff and then I took his so he could climb over. When he came down, he landed pretty hard, breaking what little surface tension there was of the muddy substance, and he sunk into it to his knees. I handed his bag to him, to sling over his back, and we locked arm-in-hands to I could pull him out. Since the surface area on my shoes was better, I never sunk.

Eschaton decided he was going to go under this large, lateral pipe. This was his first mistake. As he went under it the mud underneath him almost completely gave way and within fractions of a second he had lost balance and sunk nearly waste deep, plunging his camera bag into the muddy slosh that had been disturbed from under the pipe.

Together, AD and I locked arm-in-hand with Eschaton and pulled him out. After checking his camera and finding it to be (thankfully) dry, we pursued further. We went through several phases of mud and gunk. I was knee high in thin mud and thigh high in muddy water. With every step further we could see the black oily sludge well up and plume into the water, from deep under the mud layers as we agitated it. Despite doing everything we could, there was no way to avoid walking directly in it, even when we did balance on the side of the concrete for a few feet at a time. We fell many more times each, sometimes catching each other and other times pulling each other out from the places we sunk into it.

It's hard to imagine that this trek only took us an hour, because Jesus' 40 days and nights in the desert probably seem as long. But finally we got to an area that was muddy but only up to our ankles. The pipe had opened up to a room. In the room were lots of 2x4 framing pieces and various boards. It was a vault of some sort, I guess. This is the point where we realized we were almost at the end. We looked up in one part and could see a square of concrete above us had been cut out. The hold was only about 2 feet by 2 feet. But we couldn't see the sky above us. Instead, we saw what looked like a tin ceiling of a warehouse. We acknowledged this but kept going. We had steam pipes that were calling us and we were going to find them.

We reached the end, over a bit of a hill in the vault and realized that...there were no steam pipes. Maybe we were lost? time to call Craig. Luckily, we had phone signal in this pipe. Craig was baffled, there was no way we had gone the wrong way he had said. There was only one way to go and they take you right too them.

What we had failed to immediately realize at the time was that every bit of masonry in this section of the drain/vault...was new. Brand new. They'd been covered up. We just traveled all that way to find out...they'd been covered recently.

We then began to mentally prepare ourselves for the fact we had to make that long journey back up the drain, to leave. Then one of us suggested maybe another way out. That hole in that building had been leaking water out of it, and it went to the surface, so why not?

AD went up first and said "Who is the nex...HEY! There's a LADDER up here!!" He lowered it down and I went up, followed by Eschaton. It really was just a warehouse and from the looks of it, it was where the workers were getting down into the vault in order to lay the bricks that had covered our steam pipes. Deciding that this was likely out best place to exit, instead of walking all the way back through the tunnels, we began getting ready to leave. Eschaton walked to the front of the building to check on the door and AD was pulling the ladder out of the hole. I realized that I was pantsless and this might not bode well with the locals, especially on Good Friday.

Taking off my shoes and putting on my pants, I asked AD if I could borrow the extra, dry boots he had and I was putting them on when Eschaton walks up and says that front door can't be open due to it being a dead-bolt locked and unlocked with a key on both sides. Fucking hell. If we can't get out of this building it means we have to go back through the pipe.

Suddenly and with no warning the whole building begins to rumble and shake. We can't hear each other and then a horn blares throughout the entire building as the windows on the one side begin to light up brightly. Soon it looks like Daylight in the warehouse and then the light is gone, but the rumbling continues at the train roared by us, with what much have been mere feet between it and the building. The train was so close would could hear the metal scraping on the tracks as it flew by.

We went to the back of this building and found a few sets of double-doors. Each one had been padlocked, but none of them had been padlocked correctly, leaving the latches completely open and the doors held only by a timber across the inside of it. Lifting this board, we instantly were able to flutter down the stairs outside into the real world.

Then we had a whole new task: where were we?

None of us are from Tennessee, never mind Johnson City and we somehow needed to find AD's car. We wandered aimlessly for a while to try and get our bearings. At one in the morning, all 10 of the people who live in JC were out and we either ran into the same cop car 5 times or they were making circles to look at us. I can't blame anyone for staring at us, though. I was the most normal looking one with jeans and a jacket on (since you couldn't see how muddy my legs were underneath). The guys were covered in mud, wearing waders and we were speaking crazy talk about the underground. We looked like drunk hobos, to be certain.

Finally, we found the car and all piled in. The guys took almost everything off, because it was saturated and we made our way to the Lewis' to join the rest of the 20-something people in the nightly party.

It was a disappointing yet rewarding night, that was when I sealed my friendship solidly with two guys who have become some of the best friends I could ask for. Despite the lack of steam pipes, it was a great way to end one of the greatest nights of my life, with unforgettable comradery.

In high school I went draining with a couple of friends. We saw this huge opening to what looked like a drain on the side of a hill. The only problem was that there was a huge knee high pool of stagnant water in the middle of it. On the side was a slanted edge that was at an incline at about 30 degrees and to the mouth of the drain it was about 40 feet.. We spent an hour deliberating, and ended up shimmying along the side of it.

Once we got over it we were home free. So we walk down and it leads us to the other side of the hill. Quite anti climatic.

I remember reading about someone who worked at Cane Hill Hospital in the 1960s.

He & some other nursing staff used to explore the network of passages under the hospital when off-duty.

It was very easy to get lost, & often it was a case of finding a manhole & seeing what was above.

Once they were under the night matron's office, & somehow she didn't see the cover lift up.

Another they came up in an enclosed courtyard & had to climb over a roof because they had no masterkeys for the doors into the building (the had to be handed in at the end of each shift).

I need to go away for 6 months and come back with a list

A couple of hours ago, a manhole spit myself and 3 friends out into the backyard area of an apartment complex. Only a wooden fence separated us from the people having a party next door. Should have joined in now that I think about it...

Link to some pictures of the drain:
http://www.uer.ca/...=1&threadid=120060

Posted by Jac Steel A couple of hours ago, a manhole spit myself and 3 friends out into the backyard area of an apartment complex. Only a wooden fence separated us from the people having a party next door. Should have joined in now that I think about it... Link to some pictures of the drain: http://www.uer.ca/...=1&threadid=120060

You should be really careful about that. I wouldn't pop a manhole unless you know exactly where you'll come out. You never know when you'll pop out in a street or busy intersection and get run over as you're popping it.

But I did look at your thread, looks like a fun adventure!

You should be really careful about that. I wouldn't pop a manhole unless you know exactly where you'll come out. You never know when you'll pop out in a street or busy intersection and get run over as you're popping it.

Oh trust me, we were worried about that, especially knowing some of the stories people have posted here! We did our best to stand underneath for a few minutes and listen for any cars before even attempting to pop the cover. Most of them came up in parking lots so we were quite surprised when we ended up in a backyard!

Posted by Jac Steel A couple of hours ago, a manhole spit myself and 3 friends out into the backyard area of an apartment complex. Only a wooden fence separated us from the people having a party next door. Should have joined in now that I think about it... Link to some pictures of the drain: http://www.uer.ca/...=1&threadid=120060

You should've gone over to the party and said "Anyone want lobster?"

A while ago I spent a whole day just wandering up a central drainage channel, and exploring each drain that joined into it. Most of the drains had at least some water flowing out of them, so when I came to one with no water I was a bit surprised. I went and started exploring it, however after only 20 meters or so, came to a shaft dropping straight down at least 15 feet. I've been planning on going back and rappelling down to see what's at the bottom, since it's always puzzled me as to why there's a shaft going down if it already has a path for water to flow out. (and how the shaft wasn't flooded)

Posted by Darthbindy A while ago I spent a whole day just wandering up a central drainage channel, and exploring each drain that joined into it. Most of the drains had at least some water flowing out of them, so when I came to one with no water I was a bit surprised. I went and started exploring it, however after only 20 meters or so, came to a shaft dropping straight down at least 15 feet. I've been planning on going back and rappelling down to see what's at the bottom, since it's always puzzled me as to why there's a shaft going down if it already has a path for water to flow out. (and how the shaft wasn't flooded)

Maybe there's a sewer drain at the bottom of the shaft and the shaft acts as an emergency overflow?

Not exactly a drain, but the tunnels at my school led us to all sorts of interesting places.

Probably the most interesting was the former nuclear reactor building, with the concrete supports for the actual reactor still standing there, the inside walls hollowed out from the removal.

(not my picture, unfortunately mine died with an old hard drive)
https://upload.wik...ng_interior_02.jpg
I wished I had a radiation meter.

Another time we went down a very long sloping section down the hill under some of the dorms, and came out inside a parking garage just like OP wondered about. It was indeed weird, the 4 of us suddenly popping out of a hatch in the middle of the garage. Luckily there was no one around as it was after midnight on a weekday, and it was an unsecured garage so we just walked out. I went back recently and now the hatch is sealed with anti-student technology (a jury-rigged plate secured over the inside emergency exit latch we used to pop with a homemade tool)

Also got into one of the Chemistry building classrooms after hours from the connection to the tunnel network, but I didn't stick around to take pics as I was not sure about security in active buildings.

My personal favorite was the old section of brick tunnel I found on my own during school hours (stupid time to explore tunnels I know) and then went back to several times with other people. It was accessed by a small 2 foot by 2 foot door from the normal tunnels complete with regular-sized doorknob, which was awkward to squeeze through since it dropped ~4 feet to the dirt floor of the old section. Interesting things about this area: pretty old brick walls, dead small animals all over the place, and you could make out the wood grain of the structure they used to originally pour the concrete for the ceiling. One of the users here has a video of this section somewhere but I can't find the post, maybe he will share it.