1971 — Dec 11, nat. gas explosion, Lake Huron water tunnel construction proj., Port Huron, MI-22

–22 Ferrara, Grace M. The Disaster File: The 1970’s. New York: Facts on File, 1979, p. 142.
–22 National Fire Protection Association. The 1984 Fire Almanac. 1983, p. 139.
–22 News-Palladium, Benton Harbor, MI. “Ex-Tunnel Inspector Says Safety Ignored.” 12-13-1971, 1.
–21 NFPA. “Multiple-Death Fires, 1971,” Fire Journal, Vol. 66, No. 3, May 1972, p. 63.

Narrative Information

Ferrara: “Twenty-two men building a water tunnel 250 feet below Lake Huron, Michigan were killed Dec. 11 as a natural gas explosion ripped through the shaft. Sixteen men escaped.” (Ferrara, Grace M. The Disaster File: The 1970’s. New York: Facts on File, 1979, p. 142.)

NFPA: “On December 11 an explosion caused 21 deaths in a tunnel under construction in Lake Huron, off Port Hu¬ron, Michigan, The tunnel, intended for use for water supply for the Detroit area, extended six miles out un¬der the lake. An air sample taken in the tunnel 80 minutes before the explosion had been found to be safe. Investigators believe the explosion was caused by igni-tion of methane gas by the drilling equipment.” (NFPA. “Multiple-Death Fires, 1971,” Fire Journal, Vol. 66, No. 3, May 1972, p. 63-64.)

Newspapers

AP, Dec 13: “Port Huron, Mich. (AP) – Carnage described as ‘worse than a battlefield’ greeted the first rescuers who descended into the nearly completed water tunnel where a thunderous explosion killed 22 men Saturday….The explosion was so violent said Fire Chief Lincoln Harrington, that air ducts made out of corrugated metal were shredded and rolled up into balls…a nearby resident said the explosion ‘sounded like a sonic boom’.” (The News-Palladium. “Blast Scene ‘Worse Than a Battlefield’,” 12-13-1971.)

AP, Dec 13: “Port Huron, Mich. (AP) — A former safety inspector on the Lake Huron water tunnel, where 22 men died in a violent explosion Saturday, charged today that his superiors had ignored safety so they could stay on schedule in construction….There was no immediate comment from those in charge of the big project which is to supply water to metropolitan Detroit and some other communities….

“…teams of federal and state investigators were slated to enter the six mile long tunnel shaft to see if there were any additional bodies and to seek clues as to the cause of the explosion that tossed men and machinery about in the underwater tunnel.

[The] “…general manager of the Detroit Metropolitan Water Services (DMWS) said it was impossible to tell as yet how much damage had been done to the $120 million project which had been expected to supply water to Detroit by July. Authorities said their first concern was to probe through some of the tangled wreckage to see if any more workmen had been pinned under the debris.

[The former safety inspector] “…who worked on the project for about a year before he left May 21, said, ‘the whole project was just full of negligence. I am just amazed that the horrible working conditions did not cause something like this a long time ago”….

“Authorities were still uncertain Sunday how many men had been in the 16-foot diameter, six-mile-long tunnel which extends five miles out under Lake Huron at a depth of some 230 feet.
In addition to the 22 dead — four of whom had yet to be identified — eight other miners lay in area hospitals, six in serious condition…. Approximately 10 miners apparently escaped on their own, authorities said.

“…termed ‘conjecture’ [was] a wide-spread theory that overhead, offshore drilling of a ventilation shaft, which penetrated the tunnel about 80 minutes prior to the explosion, touched off pockets of natural gas. ‘We want to get the experts in there, and see what might have happened’…

“The cleaning up of wreckage and the search for more bodies continued Sunday as investigators from the U.S. Bureau of Mines, the Occupational Safety and Health Agency of the U.S. Department of Labor, the Michigan Department of Health and the Michigan Department of Labor began combing through the twisted equipment and debris. The evacuation of bodies and search for survivors was interrupted twice Saturday night and early Sunday morning by a buildup of methane gas in the shaft. It was only after several hours of pumping air into the shaft that the tunnel was declared safe and operations resumed….

“Robert Bower, an independent petroleum geologist and consultant who examined the construction site a year ago, said methane gas buildups occasionally had been detected in the tunnel. Bower said the Antrim Shale through which the tunnel was cut contained isolated pockets of natural gas, and that work was normally halted when the gas pockets were discovered.
‘They would hit little fissures that would have gas in them,’ he explained, ‘and they might blow out for maybe 10 minutes or half an hour, so they would shut down this machinery so there would not be any fire.’….

“Remus revealed that the tunnel had been equipped with continually operating sensory devices which would sound an alarm and shut off equipment in the event of oxygen loss, gas buildup or water seepage. ‘We had the best men possible taking every precaution imaginable,’ he said. ‘We had so much detection equipment and supervisory personnel looking for anything which could lead to an accident that it makes it even harder to hear’.

“The tunnel, about six weeks from completion, is part of a water system designed to provide high quality Lake Huron water within a year for Detroit and its customers on the metropolitan water system. By 1980, the system was slated to pump water to Ann Arbor and Lansing, and was planned to accommodate the water demands of an estimated 8.9 million people by the year 2000.
The workers were finishing laying cement in the huge tunnel, which leads out under the lake to an intake shaft which extends upward to within 50 feet of the lake surface.

“The tunnel will be capable of carrying 1.2 billion gallons of water daily and was dug by a massive mechanical “mole” guided by laser beams. Under construction since 1968, the $120 million water system was planned by the DMWS, which includes representatives from Detroit, Oakland and Macomb Counties. From the intake crib and tunnel, the water will flow into a 10-foot diameter main to the Imlay Interchange Plant over 25 miles away, and then through smaller lines to Detroit and Flint.” (The News-Palladium. “Ex-Tunnel Inspector Says Safety Ignored,” 12-13-1971, p. 1.)

Sources

Ferrara, Grace M. The Disaster File: The 1970’s. New York: Facts on File, 1979.

National Fire Protection Association. “Multiple-Death Fires, 1971,” Fire Journal, Vol. 66, No. 3, May 1972, pp. 63-65.

National Fire Protection Association. The 1984 Fire Almanac. Quincy, MA: NFPA, 1983.

News-Palladium. “Blast Scene ‘Worse Than a Battlefield’,” 12-13-1971. Accessed 2-24-2022 at: https://newspaperarchive.com/benton-harbor-news-palladium-dec-13-1971-p-1/

News-Palladium (Benton Harbor, MI). “Ex-Tunnel Inspector Says Safety Ignored,” 12-13-1971, p. 1. At: http://www.newspaperarchive.com/FullPagePdfViewer.aspx?img=85275868