Tunnels

Question: I found weird tunnels in my lawn under the snow. These tunnels have no tops! I think they’re too small for a mole. What would make half-tunnels? Answer: Those are vole tunnels. After snow melts and no longer provides protective cover, the tunnels will not be used. However, you obviously have a vole population. These short-tailed "meadow mice" seriously damage plants. Voles chew roots, girdle trunks, and devour many bulbs. For help, go to our website: www.hgic.

A disabled vehicle in Baltimore City on Interstate 95 South/North at Bore 1 of the Fort McHenry Tunnel has closed one of four southbound tunnel lanes at 8:48 a.m. The Maryland Transit Administration reported minor delays on the MARC train at 9 a.m.

As of 4:30 p.m., there was severe congestion on the northbound lanes of both tunnels going under Baltimore's harbor. The Maryland Transit Administration had reported no delays on public transit. For the most up-to-date traffic information,  visit The Baltimore Sun's traffic map .

M. Faysal Thameen, a retired structural engineer who headed the city's role in the 1980s construction of the Fort McHenry Tunnel, died of cancer April 9 at his home in Millbury, Mass. The former Parkville resident was 75. "He was a quiet force in the Interstate Division," said former Maryland Transportation Secretary William K. Hellmann, who was recently appointed to the state's Transportation Authority board. "He was soft-spoken, knew his business and was the key coordinator with the designers of the Fort McHenry Tunnel, which was then the largest single contract in the history of the Interstate Highway System.

The Camden Yards playing field again proved up to the task of remaining playable after a heavy rainfall last night, but the dugouts and concourses weren't quite so lucky.The downpour, which held up play for nearly two hours, deposited up to five feet of water in the tunnels connecting the clubhouses to the home and visiting dugouts, said Orioles spokesman Rick Vaughn.Players were forced to use the home-plate tunnel for access to the field, and their bats were stored in the dugouts, rather than in the adjacent tunnels, Vaughn said.

Federal Hill seems to be one of those places where the more things change, the more they stay the same. So it is with the tunnels in the hill, which pop into public notice every few decades. The contractor shoring up the unstable north face of Federal Hill Park unearthed a large cavern 20 or 30 feet below the surface. Meticulously carved and arched, it runs some 200 feet, with a large chamber. An archaeologist got a quick look, and the entrance was quickly sealed before the curious could get in.Existence of tunnels under the park and, indeed, under a considerable area of the surrounding neighborhood, has long been documented.

For the 22nd year, Maryland Transportation Authority employees will be collecting new, unwrapped toys this week for the Marine Corps Reserves Toys for Tots campaign. Drop-off sites will be staffed from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. and from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday at the Baltimore Harbor and Fort McHenry tunnels, the Francis Scott Key Bridge, the U.S. 40 Hatem Memorial Bridge, the U.S. 301 Nice Memorial Bridge, the Intercounty Connector and the Dundalk Marine Terminal.

IN THE HOTLY competitive world of maritime trade, Baltimore's port rivals in Philadelphia and Norfolk have gained a key advantage in the battle for cargo business. Both of those ports can ship container cargo inland on larger double-stacked railroad flat cars; Baltimore can't. Its railroad tunnels leading to the port are too low.That's becoming a distinct disadvantage. Without higher tunnels, the Port of Baltimore is going to lose cargo in the years ahead as steamship lines increasingly shift to the bigger container boxes to reduce expenses in their cutthroat industry.

MOSCOW -- Sealed in a Day-Glo army-issue chemical weapons suit, Vadim Mikhailov enters a public park as nonchalantly and unhindered as if he were on a Sunday stroll.With a crowbar, he pops open a 75-pound manhole cover and drops into the dank, echoing depths of a dark tunnel for another day's work.Where Moscow's self-appointed lord of the underground emerges is likely to be a story on the evening news.Up from the sewers, utility tunnels and underground river beds, he has crashed parties through ventilation shafts at the chic Maxim's restaurant and Planet Hollywood.

Like eager home improvers, subway construction crews broke through a wall yesterday and felt good about it.The wall was a 3-foot-thick bulkhead leading to the east side of the future Shot Tower Station.The event represented a significant milestone for the 1.5-mile Metro extension from Charles Center Station to Johns Hopkins Hospital. It means that the more northerly of the twin tunnels from the hospital to Charles Center now is unimpeded by barriers.Workers can walk underground all the way from the hospital to the outer wall of Charles Center -- and even peak through a small hole that's been drilled through the concrete wall.

A truck caught fire at the Fort McHenry Tunnel toll plaza on northbound Interstate 95 near Keith Avenue on Monday evening, causing traffic delays as emergency personnel worked to control the blaze, according to the Maryland Transportation Authority Police. The Ford F-150 came through the tunnel and its driver paid the toll about 5:15 p.m. before realizing the vehicle was on fire and pulling over to the right-hand shoulder, just north of the toll booths, said Sgt. Jonathan Green, a police spokesman.

As of 8:30 a.m. Monday, one westbound lane and shoulder of Liberty Road at Washington Avenue in Baltimore County was closed due to a utility problem, the state highway administration reported. In Baltimore, on Interstate 95, one northbound should was closed before the Fort McHenry Tunnel due to a disabled vehicle. MARC is operating on an "S" schedule on the Penn and Brunswick Lines. Trains with an "S" under their train number in the timetables are running due to the New Year's Eve holiday, according to the MTA website.

Two back-to-back crashes at the Fort McHenry Tunnel in Baltimore on Thursday afternoon left one person injured and closed one of the tunnel's four traffic bores for more than an hour as emergency crews responded, according to Maryland Transportation Authority Police. Emergency personnel responded about noon to the third northbound bore of the Interstate 95 tunnel and found two accidents involving three vehicles and a commercial truck, one just outside the tunnel and one inside of it, said Sgt. Kirk Perez, a police spokesman.

As of 9 a.m. Wednesday, I-895 was closed in both directions at the Baltimore Harbor Tunnel in Baltimore City, due to an accident involving seven vehicles. Accidents were slowing traffic on Russell Street at Bayard Street in Baltimore City, Route 100 westbound near Catherine Avenue in Anne Arundel County, and Erdman Avenue and Parklawn Avenue in Baltimore City. Monument Street is closed between Wolfe Street and Patterson Park Avenue in East Baltimore, due to sinkhole repairs. Maryland Transit Administration bus 35 has been diverted.

For the 22nd year, Maryland Transportation Authority employees will be collecting new, unwrapped toys this week for the Marine Corps Reserves Toys for Tots campaign. Drop-off sites will be staffed from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. and from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday at the Baltimore Harbor and Fort McHenry tunnels, the Francis Scott Key Bridge, the U.S. 40 Hatem Memorial Bridge, the U.S. 301 Nice Memorial Bridge, the Intercounty Connector and the Dundalk Marine Terminal.

A New York man wanted for murder was stopped by police after a fixed license plate reader on Interstate 95 in Baltimore County alerted authorities to his location. Keith Howard, 63, of Astoria, N.Y., was stopped by a Maryland Transportation Authority officer after a license plate reader near the Fort McHenry Tunnel detected his license plate Oct. 10, said transportation authority spokesman Sgt. Jonathan Green. Howard's vehicle had been flagged by New York authorities, who identified him as a suspect in stabbing death of his tenant, Karla Shah Boguwalski, 39, on Oct. 2, according to The New York Daily News, which first reported the story.

The Big Dig's tunnels are structurally sound despite hundreds of roof leaks and dozens of wall defects, according to a Federal Highway Administration report released yesterday, but Massachusetts must develop an "aggressive" tunnel inspection program to ensure the roadway's future safety. The report, coming about six months after a huge leak flooded the Interstate 93 northbound tunnel, also says the tunnels will probably always be susceptible to leaks which could pose a long-term corrosion threat to the steel beams that form the spine of the roadway.

NEW YORK -- At the terror targets yesterday, relief mixed uneasily with dark thoughts of the hellish destruction that might have been.As authorities quietly beefed up security around the spots on the alleged terrorists' hit list -- the United Nations, 26 Federal Plaza and the Holland and Lincoln tunnels -- many contemplated the second frightening reminder in four months that life in New York can never be the same."

For the third time since July, city public works crews have found a hole in a 120-year-old drainage culvert beneath East Monument Street near Johns Hopkins Hospital - another setback in a months-long effort to fix and reopen the road. The small hole opened early Thursday morning about 125 feet from where a much larger hole in the culvert caused a sinkhole to open July 25, officials said. Heavy rains caused that sinkhole to reopen and expand Aug. 26. The 10-foot-wide tunnel receives storm water from smaller drainage pipes from a large part of the city and carries it to the Baltimore Harbor.