A home in Southwest Detroit (Photo by Steve Neavling)
About half of Detroit's fire hydrants are defective, and that spells big danger for residents, Steve Neavling of Motor City Muckraker reports.
In one instance, Neavling writes:
When an arsonist set fire to a vacant house in southwest Detroit on July 31, firefighters arrived within minutes. But across the street, the hydrant was broken, wrapped for months in yellow caution tape.
The water pressure on the next hydrant was so low it was useless.
By the time firefighters found a reliable hydrant on Proctor Street, the blaze spread to two neighboring houses, and 20-foot flames were so hot they melted the plastic siding off of four occupied houses across the street.
“It was terrifying,” recalled Lisa Gonzalez, who lives on Proctor Street. “I thought we were going to lose the whole block.”
Neavling goes on to write:
Detroit’s long-neglected hydrants are failing at alarming rates, and the century-old underground system that supplies the water is crumbling far faster than the city’s Water and Sewerage Department (DWSD) can maintain it. As a result, insurance rates are rising and fires are burning longer and frequently spreading to next-door homes and businesses in neighborhoods that are struggling to survive, according to a one-year Motor City Muckraker investigation involving thousands of public records, a lawsuit we filed against the city, dozens of interviews with residents, fire officials and hydrant experts, an examination of more than 3,000 structure fires and a review of post-fire photos and data collected by Loveland Technologies.
Neavling reports that Mayor Mike Duggan's administration acknowledges the seriousness of the problem.
Neavling reports:
Duggan’s administration hired eight crews to tackle the problem, but not even that is enough.
“The city has struggled for decades with the effects of a lack of investment in its old water infrastructure, some of which is more than 100 years old,” Duggan told us. “That is starting to change.”
Duggan noted that the city will begin receiving $50 million a year for 40 years “to replace old mains for a more reliable water system, including our fire hydrants,” as part of a deal with the suburbs to lease water assets from Detroit.
