r/BeAmazed • u/youngster_96 • Feb 18 '25

Place Flooded Detroit Neighborhood Turn into Ice

35.2k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

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18

u/bryman19 Feb 18 '25

How'd this happen?

22

u/Salute-Major-Echidna Feb 18 '25

Water main break.

30

u/Howard_Scott_Warshaw Feb 19 '25

Not just a water main, a 54" water main!

6

u/Zmb_64_3 Feb 19 '25

The crazy thing is there are way bigger water mains. I know someone that was having trouble finding a leak on the property of a facility he managed. He ended up calling the city, or someone, who confirmed there was a pipe running under there from the city’s water supply to the treatment plant. They literally shut off the pipe and walked through it to find the crack. That was like a 96” pipe.

3

u/DryBoofer Feb 19 '25

I’m not going in the giant pipe no way no how

1

u/Salute-Major-Echidna Feb 19 '25

The worst is that it's not built to be worked on.

14

u/tmhoc Feb 19 '25

water main break and no plan for drainage and no plan to evacuate residence and just an all around fucking failure to be a city government

2

u/tmullato Feb 19 '25

Well, maybe.

I'm curious from a utility worker perspective. I have to assume there are storm drains in this area given the apparent elevation issue. The neighborhood looks to be sitting in a bowl. A 54" water main can flow an unbelievable amount of water. Depending on the type of break it could have just been a pisser or an explosive self-excavation. In the latter case storm drains wouldn't be able to keep up. That is especially true in the winter when those drains get covered with snow and ice.