It’s official: Killer Mike gets a tunnel-boring machine named in his honor
Mayor says name ‘Driller Mike’ should be ‘hot with the hipsters’
As if “Scarlet” and “Peach Beast” even had a chance. As everyone expected, “Driller Mike” overwhelmingly defeated the other two finalist names — along with approximately 700 other suggestions — to christen the city’s mammoth machine that will dig a tunnel from Bellwood Quarry to the Chattahoochee River.
Today, Mayor Kasim Reed and city officials joined Killer Mike, the tunnel-boring machine’s namesake, and Bryan Schroeder, the Atlantan who suggested the name, to celebrate the honor. The multimillion-dollar machine has been assembled and started drilling a five-mile tunnel to create an emergency-drinking water reservoir and an amenity for what will one day become the city’s largest park. City and federal officials must decide whether the reservoir will be surrounded by a fence or not.
Standing in the bottom of the quarry, Reed said the name would be “hot with the hipsters.” Killer Mike said he was honored, saying it’s “hard to honor rappers cause we have potty mouths.” When asked what he thought when he heard about the recognition, Killer Mike said “Bullshit, I thought it was a joke.” He also gave a nod to the municipal water supply, saying “clean water is a right.”
Here are more photos from today’s event:
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