[snip]Before dawn, employees of the Merchandise Mart noticed two inches of water in the basement. They called the fire department. By the time firefighters arrived, that two inches had become two feet, on its way to 38 feet. “Fish are swimming in the basement of the Mart,” said radio reporter Larry Langford. Across the river, streetlights went out downtown. In the subway tunnels, water was cascading over open electrical circuit panels, so the CTA cut power to the trains. Electrical units across 24 square blocks of the city were shorting out, basements being a common location for transformers and air-conditioning...