St. Paul caves: A deadly expedition | Minneapolis Star Tribune

St. Paul caves: A deadly expedition

Curt Brown, Star Tribune
April 29, 2004CAVE0429

While one of the teenagers trapped in a St. Paul cave was headed for a full recovery Wednesday, city officials and experts insist that little could have been done to prevent the deaths of his three friends.

After all, they say, the teens knew that they were wandering into a potentially deadly labyrinth of sandstone caves along the Mississippi River bluffs.

Justin Jensen, 17, of Savage, was upgraded from critical to serious condition after being treated for carbon monoxide poisoning with a hyperbaric chamber at Hennepin County Medical Center in Minneapolis.

More at the Minneapolis Star-Tribune

is that the police and fire rescuers had to crawl through tunnels so small to get to those teens that they had to take off their oxygen masks to fit. Why on earth would those kids go so deep into a cave system with such tiny tunnels? It makes me shudder just to think about wriggling through tiny openings deep beneath the earth.

And that is because people dig them open after they bury the entrances.

Once inside the caves you literaly could drive a semi truck in them.

They were used to store beer way back, so they had to be big.

These man-made caves are extensive, elaborate, and very, very interesting; many years ago, as a young person, I ran around in them with friends, too.

Collapse is the usual risk. And it's an old, old story in St. Paul--a tragedy, but one which, as long as the caves exist, will recur. Presumably the chief reason for the city not detonating the caves is that the bluff, which fronts some nice real estate, would come tumbling down. But as the article suggests, sealing the entrances does not keep people out, and has not done so for generations.

a lot of spelunkers just love going through the tight ones. They often lead to huge caverns.

Especially since we went to them as teenagers.

Our town is 75 miles away from St. Paul, and it is still almost a right of passage to head there at some point in high school.

Thank god we all made it out all right.

They are such interesting caves though.

For instance there is one tunnel leading off one of the main caves that has a tunnel heading almost straight up, and one going down.

The one at the top has an octagonal room with gargoyle heads and benches and it is carved into the wall "Heaven".

The one at the bottom is a blank walled square about 15 feet on every side, except for the word "Hell" carved into the wall.

Remember this is all carved out of solid rock.

Oh, and there is one offshoot that has the strangest thing.

It starts off as a rectangle about 4 feet by 2 feet and goes straight into the rock.

The odd thing is that it KEEPS GOING into the solid rock way past the point where you can fit, because it gets progressively smaller.

In fact from the powerful flashlights we had you could tell that it literally goes to a point.

I am not sure who carved all of these things, but I heard there was alot of people living in them in the 60's.

Anyway with them being this dangerous, they really should blow them shut instead of just burying the entrances.

They are usually dug out within a week.

"They can dig new holes with spoons," Villaume said. City Council Member Dave Thune, whose ward includes the caves, said: "We've stuffed them with beds of concrete, we've used steel reinforcement bars, steel sheets, steel pilings. We've put up cyclone fencing around them. The problem is those bluffs are made of sandstone and you can scrape it off with your hands."

But come on man, we were kids.

And so are the ones who died.

And up until now, I have never heard of anyone dieing in them in the last 34 years.

There will always be curious kids sniffing around them if they can get in, though hopefuly this tragedy will stop most of them.

My point is that for the cost of a few sticks of dynomite, they can be closed forever.

Two teenage girls died in them in 1992. Homeless people die in there every few years.

To get to the caves these kids had to walk past a warning sign saying people had died in the caves and dig around the closed entrance.

This wasn't a "tragedy". It was kids doing something irresponsible and suffering the consequences of their actions.

throw parties in there. Open a restaurant...

Yeah, I know, cost and liability issues, but it seems there's a better way than just trying to keep people out.

Nice place too.

Still, I personaly think the best course of action is to simply blow them shut at lest 30 feet or so into the cave.

If people are dieing, why mess around?

Although like I said they are interesting.

"Wabasha Street Caves". You can reserve it for parties etc. There are still bullet holes in the walls from a Tommy gun.

for not venting the CO2.

Sue everybody!