What a LOVELY Sunday morning!
The sun is shining here North of Detroit, and it is a balmy 36 degrees
outside. The coffee tastes wonderful, and the subject du jour seems to be
EXPLOSIONS, a subject near and dear to the heart of every growing boy. As
a veteran of 10 years experience as a DOD inspector in an explosives factory, I
couldn't be happier!
Therefore, I'm going to tell you all my story of natural gas explosions
here in the hub of the universe, Lake Orion, Michigan.
The Village of Lake Orion is a small community 35 miles North of
Detroit. It grew from a small summer vacation community into its current
yuppie status. For 10 years (A different decade of my life), I owned a
hardware store in town and was a volunteer firefighter. All of
the village was fitted with septic tanks which drained their effluent into
Paint Creek, the overflow from Lake Orion.
This worked fine as long as the population was relatively small, and septic
systems were pumped regularly. Of course, as time went by and the
population enlarged, the inevitable happened. To put it bluntly, Paint
Creek became Shit Creek. Since everyone on the lake was using outboard
motors, and we had no paddles, another solution was proposed. SANITARY
SEWERS!
After much soul and pocketbook searching, sewers were placed and every
house in the village was connected to the sewer system. Every street in
this one-mile-square community was dug up, and a trench was dug to each
home. Sewers were installed and the whole mess was
refilled. Earth through the entire community was disturbed and
shaken, including all the water and gas lines that had been there for
years.
Pipes developed leaks, including natural gas lines. Water leaks
made a mess, but were obvious, and could be fixed. Gas lines leaked, but
for the most part the gas seeped up through the loose soil and dissipated
without any fuss. So, we went through the golden days of autumn, reveling
in our newly refurbished flush toilets, enjoying the prospect of no clogged
septic tanks.
Then, the ground froze. Those little gas leaks that had formerly
exited through the loose soil had nowhere to go and followed the gas
lines into the basements of nearby homes. In the basements, the gas filled
the homes from the top down, until the furnace thermostat turned the pilot
lights on. BOOM!
We lost four homes in that winter. I got to go to all four, in my
shiny red truck with all the twinkly lights on it. Amazingly, no one was
hurt, including one family that was sitting around the dining room table when
the walls blew out from around them. They jumped overboard before the roof
fell in!
It all made for a memorable year!
I'm sorry, and I will possibly get some sour grapes for being long and off-
topic, but I just had to share, and after all, it is a lazy Sunday...
Joe
Savard
Lake Orion, Michigan
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