DETROIT (WXYZ) — A water main leak led a street to collapse Thursday in Southwest Detroit, nearly swallowing up a car.
Surveillance video shows the car stopped at an intersection then suddenly sinking into the street. The driver is reported by witnesses to be OK.
“It was just something different. I only seen that in the movies,” said Shawn Bundy, who saw the car in the hole from across the street. "I didn't know what to think.”
Leading up to the incident, neighbors say their homes had been losing water pressure and the street began flooding on Tuesday — evidenced by the sediment left behind.
Watch crews work on the sinkhole in the video below:
Jimena Ramos Jimenez and her sister Iris Jimenez say they were concerned and reported the issue to the city.
“I was like 'OK maybe something might happen,'" Jimena Ramos Jimenez said. "But I wasn't expecting the earth would cave in.”
“The crew came out yesterday and investigated it and it appeared to be just a minor leak," said Sam Smalley, deputy director of the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department. "We saw there was a leak here yesterday when the water started surfacing, so we sent a crew out, they investigated it, scheduled it for repair but unfortunately, the pavement had been undermined, which is very difficult to tell when you're just looking at the surface.”
Smalley says what crews didn’t know is that there was a subsurface path of water going from the leak to the sewer main. The hidden leak had been washing away soil underneath the road, eventually leading to the collapse.
“We use acoustical detection to find those or unfortunately, when we see something like this, we know one has occurred,” Smalley said. “The average age of our water system is 95 years old. Even though we've been going through and replacing and refreshing a large amount of it, it’s still a very old system.”
Smalley says this particular water main was installed in 1902.
“I just wish the city did more in order to prevent this," Iris Jimenez. "I'm sure it scared the lady inside the car.”
As for the Jimenez sisters, their water was turned off while crews repair the road. They say it was their cousin and uncle who helped pull the woman from her car.
“I hope she’s alright," Iris Jimenez said. "Not sure where she is, but I hope she’s OK.”
