Millions of people live out entire months, years, and lives in the skyscraper canyons of cityscapes. This couldn’t work the way it does without all of the action happening behind the scenes from water delivery and waste removal to the stabilization devices that keep buildings standing tall. The more you find out about how a city works and the talented people who keep it running, the more fascinating it is.
A water main broke in southern Detroit, submerging cars and properties in water up to five feet deep. That water soon froze, creating a scene reminiscent of the film The Day After Tomorrow. Local Jb996 said:
I’m not surprised, but also kind of am.
“It took a couple of hours to find the valves that were covered in ice and snow to be able to isolate and shut off the water and identify exactly where the break was.”
Why isn’t there even a rough map of the system? At least to the main shutoff valves? Flooding in one area, shutoff all valves leading to that right away. “covered in snow” is a silly excuse. Obviously their procedure now is to drive around, look for something that looks like a water main valve, turn it off and see what happens. Then drive around looking for another…
This is like me living in a house for years and then saying: It took me a couple of hours to find the circuit breaker panel because of all of the furniture, shelving, and cabinets in the house.
Balloondoggle gave such a helpful answer:
Utility worker here, though not in Detroit. The maps are there, and they’re probably pretty good. However, no plan survives contact with reality. Transmission mains don’t have a lot of valves of their own, but there will be multiple places where a distribution main branches off from it. In order to shut down one segment of a transmission main you have to locate the shut off valves for every distribution main that connects to it. A good water system has lots of loops to prevent stagnant water in dead-end mains so you’re looking for a lot of valves. Then add in that many of them are now under water, under huge piles of snow from the plows, maybe under street furniture that was thoughtlessly placed over a manhole. Transmission main valves are huge and require mechanical assistance to turn, so once you find it and access it you have to get a vehicle positioned just right in order to hook up and turn that valve stem. Every valve is in a pit in the ground, so the closer you get to the break the more likely it is the valve chamber is full of water. Somehow that has to be drained so a person can access the valve and that’s another challenge when a 54″ pipe is pumping thousands of gallons per minute into your workspace.
From where I’m sitting, I’m impressed that they isolated that break in ONLY a few hours.
This weekend, we’re inviting you to see our horrible Nissan NV200 taxicab project car in North Carolina. You should totally stop by. But for now, A. Barth has some laughs:
*boots crunch in the gravel as the participants take their positions*
*a hawk screams in the middle distance*
*all stand motionless as a tumbleweed rolls through the scene*
“Hi, everyone! I’m Jason and this is David…”
Tbird:
Cue the Sergio Leone music score …
A. Barth:
Shower Spaghetti Western
Have a great evening, everyone!
(Topshot: Great Lakes Water Authority)
Also, if you turn off a valve too quickly, the pipe uphill of the valve may explode, and the pipe downhill may be crushed.
Also don’t be surprised if water that normally is flowing in one direction starts flowing in the reverse.
Its so nice to hear from people who actually know. We could all take a lesson from this to shut our collective judgy mouths unless we know what the hell we’re talking about.
Dunning-Kruger effect, at its best.
There are maps of the entire Detroit water system, the issue is so much of the system is so old, many of the valves most likely haven’t been operated in many years so they either can’t get them to close or they start to leak once you touch them. Many are in ground vaults, nobody wants to go into a 100 year old vault and start playing with a valve, instant death pit.
You can also trace metal pipes by applying a radio current to them and then looking for the signal with a receiver. Doesn’t work with non metallic piping, so most systems like ours add a trace wire alongside the pipe.
That’s how we traced communication cable through large corporate campuses. Plug the toner into a jack on one end and the use the wand to trace the path.
Put tracking devices in the system that will map the pipes. Afterwards I’m guessing based on hydrant and turns you could predict where most valves are. Though in Detroit I’m guessing due to unions it would require hiring 100,000 permanent union employees to dig up every pipe with a shovel taking approximately forever give or take.
Hey sarcasm don’t get mad.
But then you would have to fire the new hires.
Keep in mind that water system valves can also break, so if one won’t close you will have to find a bunch more to shut down to isolate that.
Which causes an effect called water hammering, which causes more main breaks.
Or you can close it and it breaks when you try to open it.
Thanks Mercedes!
Mercedes ,
Thank You
I worked on a water plant for many years. Mostly routine, but occasionally stuff like this would happen. Remember that water only moves when pushed with a pump. These can be steam powered (New Orleans) or electric. When the electric goes so goes water pressure. Now adays we have huge generators, but in the past I’d shut the plant down and light a candle while I waited.
That’s actually why there are water towers! To supply system pressure. The pump fills the tower and gravity provides the pressure head.
Out here we have water towers and big tanks up on hills. My house is fed from a large VERY large tank up on a hill about a quarter mile from here. They pump it full at night.
Lucky it wasnt common ditch less likely with transmission but you see it now and again in older cites. Especially ones like Detroit where it was everything all at once quickly. It’s always fun when you are in a hole and it’s warm and you realize there is a tunnel under you. Happens more then you realize in alot of cities. Or cut though unmarked fiber line and the guys in black suits make a visit.
I hear that penalties for hitting fiber can be very expensive, like 7 figures.
Yes, I’m not sure it’s capped. They can fine you for economic lost. Always a big mess. When you look at ditch witch crews you sometimes wonder if it’s a good idea or if the person assuming liability knows this is a possibility.
I’ve watched those guys slice through gas services, completely unconcerned. Tape it up, move on.
Yeah it happens alot. For PE gas pipe they have special tape you can use different utilities will allow up to certain pressures and volume with it but there are some apa guidelines. Because so much utility work is contacted out sometimes the same guys damaging the stuff are the same guys doing sketchy fixes before someone calls out the utility and they investigate. American infrastructure has not been treated well for about 30 years maybe more. You can dig up old cast iron gas line and it’s in better shape from 1870s or 80s then some of the stuff done much more recently.
I used to rent a house from the 1870’s, and the sewer piping was made out of clay, It turns out clay pipes will last 150 years…and the house was now 150 years old.
After that time they apparently dissolve, and you wake up in the morning to find suspiciously brown liquid bubbling around your basement steps…
(Seriously, the plumbers dug a massive pit, but couldn’t find about a meter of pipe, it had just vanished. Then the pit filled in with sewage while we waited for the landlord to get it all fixed, bad times).
It can last longer, but once it cracks the days are numbered. We have a lot of pipe of that vintage and it’s still fully functional.
Cast is basically metal glass. What’s interesting is we can’t really make it as good as it was anymore. Special recipes.
I think the problem might have been the quantity and variety of drain cleaning products that we chucked down there (to fix a blockage in a very poorly routed pipe from the 2000’s). I’m not sure what phosphoric acid does to ceramic, but I doubt it’s good.
In IT, diggers/back hoes/JCBs are refereed to as “cable finders”, because of their amazing ability to slice through fibre.
For sure. It doesn’t even matter the size of the machine they will find it if they operater isn’t looking. These ditch witch guys are giving the excavator guys a run for their money probably cause more incidents at least in the US.
A thatsah biggah pipah !!!
I feel bad that my second mention into COTD is me foolishly assuming I know more than I do.
But hey, I prompted an interesting and informative response from Balloondoggle, so I guess I’m glad I could help!
Don’t worry, it’s pretty common in modern society to assume everyone, other than yourself, must have an instantaneous robotic recall of everything related to their field.
While you’re a “normal person” and are allowed 3 days to respond to an email regarding something you worked on 2 months ago.
We all oversimplify things we’re not familiar with. Someone else in that thread noted that a 54″ valve takes a lot of turns and has to be worked back and forth before it will seal and that’s new knowledge to me. We all learned something! That’s a win!
Perfect description. If you are watching a person do a manual job and it looks so simple you think anyone can do it. Ask to try. Experts make the most complicated job seem easy. I have been the victim of this to the amusement of many of the people who worked for me. Although I have found that as a boss being willing to look like a fool and praise the people who make it looks easy is a great way to build a team and make them like you.
I applaud you for owning up to your mistake. Way too little of that going on these days and there will be much less in the future when inevitably we are going to have to clean up the mess being caused by by a bunch to 20-something’s whose most sophisticated thoughts about how things run are “just let a computer do it” and “why not build the whole plane out of the black box?” being led by dipshits who have never done anything successfully other then through stealing, graft, stiffing or intimidating others.
It’s so easy to assume something should be easy when you don’t have the deep knowledge of how it works. I had the same initial reaction of “how could it take that long to shut off?” but hearing the details really wakes you up to the massive complexity of the world.
I agree, and my reply to Balloondoggle was a clear mea culpa and a thanks for the info!
100% get it dude!
Sounds like the system we thankfully replaced- No maps, brittle early plastic piping, half the shutoffs frozen, buried only 5 feet deep with shutoffs within wing plow range in Minnesota!
“Why isn’t there even a rough map of the system? At least to the main shutoff valves?”
It’s not that surprising. Even with something as simple as the toilets in our house, the water inlet shutoff knobs are behind and below the toilet, by the wall, near the floor. Exactly the last place you want them to be when the toilet’s overflowing.
But virtually every residential WC is set up that way. In commercial buildings, the flush valve shut off is at thigh level.
When I went to work for a sanitary district, the maps seemed oh so clear. When I couldn’t locate a MH in an old residential area w/ “child safe winding streets”, I was finally shown the MH… behind a fence/wall in the front yard of a house on the outside of the curve. People also put garden sheds over MH in easements in the back yard. Fun times.
Cost cutting beareauctats. Great where is auto correct now?
For a moment I confused The Day After Tomorrow with The Day After and was desperately trying to figure out how a water main break could look like Steve Guttenberg with his hair and skin falling off.
The Day After was the LA fires, which did feature Mr Guttenberg.
The Day After was the early ’80s ABC TV movie about the aftermath of nuclear war, which also featured Mr Guttenberg.
Oh I know, I’m an old. I was just alluding to how he featured in a recent catastrophe situation, even appearing here on the site.
I have a screenplay for a great new eco-political disaster film.
My working title is “The Day After The Day After Tomorrow”
Starring Steve Guttenberg
I like it but we need a broader audience.
How about “Police Academy: The Day After The Day After Tomorrow”
Starring, obviously, Steve Guttenburg
Should see if Ted Danson and Tom Sellek are available.
Why?
Three Men And A Baby. Another Guttenberg film.
“Three Men and a Police Academy: The Day After The Day After Tomorrow”
This will win ALL of the Oscars!
So happy to collab w/ you – I have my tux already picked out, and my speech already written:
“I’d like to thank the Academy, Autopian, Steve Guttenberg, and Ted Danson – For without them this would not be possible… And Tom Selleck – Thanks for the short shorts and reverse mortgages.”
Three Men And A Baby And A Police Academy And the Village People Who Can’t Stop The Music In A Cocoon The Day After The Day After Tomorrow
I think after police academy 233 they stopped making sequels. Even Bubba refused to star in them.
I found out one weekend that I had streaming access to all of the Police Academy movies. I am some friends over and we watched all of them back-to-back. By the end, the movies were pure drivel, and we were drunk and heckling them
Watch a 1970s movie CD called politically incorrect. Staring George Clinton and the Parliament Funkadelic, a under appreciated super talented band predicting the future we are now in. And great fun to watch.
I’m fairly sure the future we are now in won’t much tolerate people like George Clinton and Funkadelic.