For a while now, I've been hearing rumors of some large drainage tunnels in this particular part of Roanoke City. But every time someone mentioned these tunnels, I'd pull out the city storm drain map, which showed no large storm drains here. So for quite a while I was confused... did this storm drain exist or not?

Then one day I compared the city storm drain maps with aerial photography of this area... and it became apparent that there was a huge storm drain missing from the storm drain maps! There were a pair of infalls visible in the aerial photographs, as well as a large outfall structure.

Trying to look as non-suspicious as possible, I ducked behind a dumpster and into the alley between some businesses and a row of houses. I'd been turned back not an hour before, when the owner of one of the businesses showed up unexpectedly... but I was in luck now. I dropped down into the shallow drainage ditch, donned my headlamp, and slipped into the rusty 5' diameter steel pipe without being spotted.

The pipe was gross - full of trash and debris - so I moved through it as quickly as I could. No time to stop for pictures! Soon, though, the steel pipe (as well as one running parallel to it) emptied into a much wider concrete storm drain. This was still 5' tall, but about twice as wide. Occasional sewer lines crossed the tunnel, one of which was dripping a steady stream of sewer funk onto the drain floor below. Nice. The one neat feature in this tunnel was a concrete chute of sorts, that carried the flowing water down the middle of the tunnel. I'm still scratching my head over that one. After a short distance of the wide tunnel, I was tired of crouching... and in luck! I rounded a bend, and emerged into the most beautiful tunnel...

Twelve foot diameter corrugated steel pipe. That's big. Ninja Turtles big. I was speechless. A 6' diameter side pipe let in warm light from the outdoors... it opened up into a large inlet of sorts, with a steel grate for a ceiling. I struggled to set up my tripod in the drain, the shiny steel floor was so slick that I could barely keep my footing. After shooting a few photos, it was time to move on. Slipping and sliding (ok, it wasn't really that bad) my way through the steel tunnel, I was astounded to find what lay ahead. Soon the 12' tunnel opened up into a massive junction room... Three 8' x 8' tunnels entered from an infall to the left, while three big 12' x 12' tunnels exited to the right. That's a whole lot of storm drain right there. Unfortunately no photo I could take could possibly do justice to the size of this junction room.

I turned right, and took the right-most of the 12' tunnels. Thanks to the dry August weather, the tunnel was practically dry. It ran for quite a ways, but aside from a turn or two was pretty non-eventful. Eventually the three tunnels dumped out through an unfinished outfall structure.

While walking through the large tunnel, it occurred to me that the downside to big drains is that the larger the drain, the shorter it seems (length-wise). At 0.35 miles of explorable length, this drain is certainly longer than most others in Virginia. However, with how cool and huge it is, it just seems to go by faster than you'd want it to.

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