Officials rule out explosion at Fort and Dearborn streets in Detroit

[Pam]

Officials rule out explosion at Fort and Dearborn streets in Detroit, cause of damage still unknown [[clickondetroit.com)

Officials still don’t know what caused the road at Fort Street and Dearborn Street in Detroit to rise nearly eight inches.
Residents said they smelled a natural gas odor for weeks. DTE said methane is leaking from the cracks but that the incident is not the result of a natural gas explosion.

[jcole]

It is next to Woodmere cemetery and it IS near Halloween...

Officials rule out explosion at Fort and Dearborn streets in Detroit, cause of damage still unknown [[clickondetroit.com)

[wilderness]

decades ago, there used to be a small gas station on the northwest corner of Fort & Dearborn. Maybe a Tulsa [[or similar) don't recall the exact name.
Wonder if the underground tanks were ever removed?

[Jimaz]

What makes this such a unique story is that the press can't seem to find any "experts" that have even a theory of a specific cause. That almost never happens.

Local residents seem convinced that there's an odor of natural gas in the area.

That building is still shifting today. It might demolish itself!

[Honky Tonk]

decades ago, there used to be a small gas station on the northwest corner of Fort & Dearborn. Maybe a Tulsa [[or similar) don't recall the exact name

Gulf

[jcole]

Methane?

[Jimaz]

Crews demolish building at site of road buckling in southwest Detroit

No one has yet dared to dismiss the theory that the graboids have arrived.

[Richard]

^ it was a medical weed store,maybe it was a front and they had a meth lab in a tunnel underneath and it went poof,nobody would have heard it.

[Funaho]

I'm wondering if that scrapyard has something to do with it. If you look at some of the later photos there is the big mound on Dearborn St, and then one behind the former Stash building. What's roughly equidistant from those two mounds? The scrapyard.

I'm wondering if maybe the weight of the huge pile there was pushing on some soft ground underneath and slowly displacing dirt. DTE has repaired a leak or two in that area recently; that suggests the ground may have been shifting slowly for weeks. It might've cracked the water main, and once water started mixing with the dirt it got soft enough that it finally gave way in catastrophic fashion.

[jcole]

^^It didn't give way, something heaved that earth up with force. I mentioned methane above, like from things decaying underground. God knows what has been under that area over the years. It could have leached in from Zug.

[Funaho]

^^It didn't give way, something heaved that earth up with force. I mentioned methane above, like from things decaying underground. God knows what has been under that area over the years. It could have leached in from Zug.

What I meant by give way is that the dirt under the road and behind the building got wet and stopped resisting, so the mound would push down and push the earth under it to the sides, and it bunched up to make the hills.

I wonder if an explosion could be ruled out by checking seismograph records from Saturday? I'd like to think any explosion that could do this would have registered well above the usual activity level around here. Anyway hopefully in the next day or so they will be able to dig in and start getting some answers.

[stasu1213]

Some entity is trying to avoid blame and possible lawsuit and would do anything to redirect the cause somewhere else

[Richard]

I'm wondering if that scrapyard has something to do with it. If you look at some of the later photos there is the big mound on Dearborn St, and then one behind the former Stash building. What's roughly equidistant from those two mounds? The scrapyard.

I'm wondering if maybe the weight of the huge pile there was pushing on some soft ground underneath and slowly displacing dirt. DTE has repaired a leak or two in that area recently; that suggests the ground may have been shifting slowly for weeks. It might've cracked the water main, and once water started mixing with the dirt it got soft enough that it finally gave way in catastrophic fashion.

Hydraulic forces,those large piles look more like coke in the video.

When you look at the upheaval it tapers starting across the piles and builds up to the 10 foot,like it was pushed out until it hit a weak spot in order to go up.

With all of the rain soaking the ground,causing the force to take the least path of resistance,they said there was methane leaking out of the crack in the pile,you can see the vapor flow out in the video.

If there was a methane pocket there or a void it would have been the path to the weakest point.

It is a definitive path that it took,not just out in every direction.

They said the methane leak was contained,not sure how they did that,but if there was lot of methane in that section,the rains added weight to the piles which compressed the soil forcing the methane out of the ground.

But there is something else going on,unless there was just a natural weak link leading from the piles to the road.

It did not send the most energy off to the side,the building they demolished just caught the edge of the slide,the path that it took is defined.

I kinda think there is a long lost tunnel under there that directed the flow,it could not raise to the left because of the weight of the other pile,it did not shoot out the back of the pile and the building was sitting on compacted undisturbed ground for,judging by the building materials,at least 70 years.

If it was a gas or methane leak explosion,there would have had to been an ignition source from the top,somebody would have seen a fire ball and the building would have had some charring,because there would have been a lot of vapor pooling on the top side surface.

Unless of course it was a meth lab under ground or something more sinister and the ignition source was from under ground,but then there would have been a smoke plum for a short time or a puff of smoke as it vented.

But being it tapers and not a circle upheaval like a blast would produce,it was pushed out and up.

Not that I am an engineer or stayed at a holiday inn express,but I have seen this before in a far away land.

It will be interesting to see what they find out.

[Dumpling]

The street address of the now demolished dispensary is
10015 W. Fort St. Detroit MI 48209.

Rayco Plating is at 10023 W. Fort per Yellow Pages.

I thought originally that the dispensary building was a
plating facility but maybe it is just the building adjacent
to the plating facility.

So one possible factor contributing to the situation is
an underground plume from the plater that is corrosive.

It is not the most likely factor in my opinion.

[Dumpling]

The area has salt mines below. There are probably also layers
that contain brine solutions below. In general, though, mines
tend to cause cave-ins rather than blow-outs.

Behind the plater and the dispensary is a scrap metal recycling
yard. The tall piles are scrap metal. These may well be heavier
than normal dirt piles. There was heavy truck traffic on
Dearborn Street, for the metal scrapyard and other
businesses, including concrete processors, rail transfer
yards, and at one time the Zug foundry down the street,
and also various other trucking firms in that area.

In addition the Rouge River is nearby. The River Rouge level
has been on the high side meaning that the water table in
the area around the plater and dispensary is also relatively
high. This has been exacerbated by rainfall during summer.
This past summer there was standing water on Dearborn Street
at the entrance to the scrap yard whenever there was a
heavy rainfall.

[Side note. The analytical staff at the WWTP was recently
moved back to the WWTP from their new location at the Kresge
Building in downtown Detroit within the Ilitch footprint near
Cass Tech High School. One reason to not have moved these
staffers is that it can be very difficult to access the WWTP.
Longtime posters will recall that the Jefferson Avenue drawbridge
over the Rouge River was raised for about three...YEARS .
Dearborn Street, which is currently blocked off, is one of the
alternate routes to the plant when the drawbridge is up....which,
yes, has its fair share of truck traffic, now that you mention it.]
[I do have a hidden agenda sometimes. In this case. Our
shared union is facing removal of all shift work premiums
for workers at the plant which will not affect the analytical
staff much since they all work a day shift. However if...and
I don't expect this to happen, but if they were to be relocated
to a far more accessible facility in a pleasant metro area, and
having gone through a lot of trouble just to get to the WWTP
jobsite, hopefully they will appreciate plant staff more and
in the future they will vote down any contract with no shift
premiums in it. I can dream.]


It could well be that the piles are causing the sodden earth
to be pushed downward and outward below them, dislodging the
pipes nearby underneath. [Agreeing with Funaho here!]

The shifting might be happening without a contribution from
the scrap piles though. A water main break or sewer pipe
break would certainly exacerbate this kind of problem.

If the high water table and rainfall are considered to be as
a result of global warming then the resulting damage could
be considered to be a cost of global warming.

[Dumpling]

It was definitely the case that a natural gas outflow from
the 16 inch main was contributing to the situation. It may
well have not been the initial cause of the situation.

Although the official statement is that DTE crews had
been to the location to make repairs each time a gas leak
was reported and did complete the repairs each time,
who knows, maybe the crews put in a different connection
or they put a patch around a cracking pipe, but it does
seem that the repairs were not what was needed for that
situation. The large gas leak was an ongoing concern there
since July at least [after the massive June rainfall that was
about three to five inches in that area].

It seems that perhaps dewatering is needed or that scrap
facility may need to be decommissioned or renovated from
below the ground upwards.

[Dumpling]

I don't have subject matter expertise at all concerning natural
gas distribution but the gas line that leaked was said to be
sixteen inches in diameter.

A cursory check of the Internet divides natural gas pipelines
into large diameter higher pressure lines called transmission
lines and smaller diameter lower pressure lines called distribution
lines.

Transmission lines are associated with pressures of 200 psi or
above. They can be six inches or more in diameter. A sixteen
inch transmission line can serve a population of 25,000.

[psi = pounds per square inch]

Distribution lines are associated with pressures of 200
psi or below, mostly well below; 10 psi was cited on a
general information webpage as the gas pressure to be
delivered to a residence.

Please feel free to correct any of this as needed.

UPDATE. The following article posted today 9/16/2021
refers to the transmission line as being 24 inches in diameter.

https://www.clickondetroit.com/news/...pose-problems/

Looks like this is affecting my job site as well...

[Dumpling]

The worst impact probably that could happen here is that the
complex 2 incinerator internal bricking will crumble from cooling
too quickly. And yes, it appears that incinerators were being
used earlier today so not good. Our backup generators won't
back up today either. The solids handling facility being used
is the one that mixes lime with sludge. The Nefco Biosolids
facility seems to also need a natural gas input in order to
dry the solids properly.

[Danny]

An explosion that crack open W. Fort St and Dearborn St. in two and cause a building to collapse. It will fix in a few weeks, but the building will be demolished. Then things will be back to normal.

[Jimaz]

This is becoming the story that would not die. And they still don't know what caused the asphalt to rise 8-10 feet.

Men caught on camera looting Southwest Detroit dispensary after partial collapse

Police in Detroit have released a new video of at least four men looting Stash Detroit on Sept. 12.

[bibs]

I was a geology major at one time but ended up majoring in something else. I'm going to say that it was a geological process. Methane and mud could have been trapped between layers of rock and under pressure. A fissure in the rock allowed the mud and water to escape. The earth on top is pressing down so the mud and methane get squeezed out like a tub of tooth paste. Since the mud, water and methane is lighter than the surrounding rock and soil, it want to rise up! This is how mud volcanoes are formed with Lusi in Indonesia being a very large one. Some other posters have mentioned that the weight of the coke piles could have caused this. My father worked a Detroit Edison is St Clair. The coal piles would get so high and heavy that it would cause the ground to rise up around the edge of the coal piles. These piles were stories high and very large. I don't think there is enough space for such a large pile though. I noticed on Google street view that the cemetery across the street is higher. Perhaps, it's pushing out this material? Another theory could be that its the beginning of the zombie apocalypse from the cemetery!

[Funaho]

When I first saw the story my mind immediately went to the movie Volcano..my wife and I were even tossing around ideas for what to call it [[she likes "Mt. Springwells"). But it could also be sand worms or graboids

[birwood]

I'm probably dating myself...besides Ray1936...but way way back when, a local company called Detroit Coke and Gas as well as the Detroit Gas Co., later MichCon, now DTE, had numerous under ground storage caverns in the salt mines below S.W. Detroit, the Southend of Dearborn and SE section of Melvindale, as well as the above ground storage tanks that dotted the landscape of the city in the neighborhoods south of Warren Ave, many of which were in proximity of the Fort & Dearborn St incident. My thoughts were, if anyone had gone down into those caverns investigate to see if maybe a few holding areas still exist and were forgotten about as time moved on or if the underground pipelines to and from these storage caverns and tanks were ever removed? Was it residual vapors escaping that caused the eruption? Just Wondering

[Jimaz]

Crews begin digging at site of Southwest Detroit road buckling

Nearly three weeks ago, the ground in Southwest Detroit heaved into the air. It buckled the road, destroyed buildings, and left residents with questions as to what caused it.

'bout time.

They're finding utilities down there that weren't on the map. That's no real surprise but that makes it hard to rule out natural gas lines.

[bust]

It's atrocious, even understandable, how decades of [ir-] responsibility created short term incentives to brush the dirt under the rug.

It afflicts the biggest, most powerful. Verizon, UWS Manhattan: just one.