Rumour has it there is a tunnel connecting a part of North Allegheny Intermediate High School to Carson Middle School. It has long been a rumour ever since Carson Middle School was founded in 1974. The rumour is false.

However, the rumour is false not because of the tunnel itself. It is wrong due to false location. There is a tunnel that connects North Allegheny Intermediate High School to McKnight Elementary School. 

The tunnel, or accessway as Mr. Hiery described it, runs parallel to Tiger Hall, the main hallway in NAI, connecting every other hall within the school. 

Mr. Heiry explained it as around a four foot wide, six foot high accessway with a floor made of gravel and brick walls. The accessway is about six foot underground where nobody can access it by just digging up the NAI field no matter how hard one tries. 

There are no known lights that can be found throughout the accessway. Therefore, whoever travels through the accessway is advised to use flashlights or use extreme caution or else find yourself walking into pipes or items you won’t be able to identify. 

Pipes travel throughout the accessway carrying air for the vents and waste from the bathroom toilets. They travel along the walls of accessway and even at some points in the middle of the walkway, making the remaining part of the walkway around two foot wide.

But that’s not the only one. There are a total of seven accessways however only one travels to McKnight Elementary. The remaining six travel only beneath the building of NAI but they also have pipes and wires. 

Only maintenance, IT and Mr. Heiry himself have access to the accessways, however his staff does not. IT had to use the accessway over the summer of 2019 in order to install new cable lines which sped up WiFi communications and access. 

All of the tunnels are accessible from NAI’s building but in order to keep up the security on the tunnel, NAEye is unable to reveal which way they use to get to the tunnel. However, NAEye was able to learn that there are many access points to get to the tunnels including ones that are in the floors and even one that is buried beneath NAI’s floor. 

All access points need a key to open the latch that leads to certain tunnels. That key is locked up at a location that will not be shared for security and safety reasons. 

Although the accessways beneath NAI may not be the Indiana Jones inspired action setting that we first believed it to be, these tunnels are still vital for NAI and McKnight Elementary. No matter how vital they are, students and teachers have never seen them and will never see them.  

Gallery • 2 Photos

Mr. Hiery

Pipes and wires traveling through the tunnels