State investigators began weighing Friday how much a Hugo company's actions contributed to the apparent drowning of two workers during a sudden downpour that left them trapped in the labyrinth of storm sewers deep below St. Paul's streets.

City Council members called for a review of the city's sewer safety procedures to see what can be learned from the death of Dave Yasis, 23, of Maplewood, and the apparent death of Joe Harlow, 34, of Plainview, Minn.

"St. Paul is not the only city in America that has sewers," Council President Kathy Lantry said. "There is a nationwide lesson to be learned from our tragedy."

Ramsey County sheriff's deputies found the body of Yasis about 6 p.m. Friday near where the storm sewers spill into the Mississippi River, Cmdr. Joe Paget said.

The sheriff's water patrol will resume searching for Harlow about 7 a.m. today.

Police boats and barge-tug vessels spent the day searching for the men under the Wabasha Street Bridge in downtown St. Paul, where much of the 450 miles of the city storm sewers empty into the Mississippi River.

Investigators from the state Occupational Safety and Health Division, sometimes referred to as Minnesota OSHA, opened their case, checking the training and evacuation procedures of Lametti & Sons. The Hugo company is one of the area's most experienced sewer contractors and built the stretch of storm sewers where the workers were trapped.

Lametti officials waited nearly four hours -- from the storm's torrential start about 3 p.m. Thursday until after 7 p.m. -- and conducted their own search before calling 911. Investigators will look into that matter.

"It would have been nice to get the call sooner," St. Paul Fire Chief John Morrison said.

Lametti spokesman Arnold Kraft said safety procedures should have allowed the men to escape.

"Elaborate safety provisions were in place," Kraft said. "We had warning devices, and we had weather spotters, signaling systems -- the whole works."

When the storm struck, Lametti supervisors ordered their workers to ascend more than 150 feet from the work site below Avon Street and Edmund Avenue near the Frogtown area.

"We were aware of the storm," Kraft said. "The guys were given the order to get out. Theoretically, from past experience, there was more than ample time to do that.

"We used the best judgment of experienced tunnelers, realizing that an emergency took place, and they took immediate action," Kraft said. "They had the experience and knowledge to do what they did."

Project was nearly done

Harlow and Yasis were among eight workers repairing cracks in the St. Albans Tunnel, an 8- to 12-foot diameter storm sewer Lametti built in the early 1980s to connect with a 1960s line that went in when Interstate Hwy. 94 was constructed through the Rondo neighborhood.

Fast-rising, thigh-high, pressurized rainwater began filling the tunnel about 3:30 p.m., according to Kraft and St. Paul Public Works officials. Two workers were hoisted up a 100-foot shaft at Avon and Edmund, but rushing water prompted six others to head more than two blocks north in the tunnel to an exit near Victoria Street, Public Works spokeswoman Natalie Fedie said.

Four of those six men climbed more than 15 stories up a ladder escape, then noticed two of their co-workers were missing. Fedie said the workers, identified by relatives as Yasis and Harlow, were the last in the line of six.