"What happened?" You ask..
It was so simple. I was remodeling my Grandmother's house (Actually Great Grandma's) for my mother to have her birthplace and childhood home back with all the comforts of modern living for her sunset years. The Gas company knocked on my door and indicated in a couple of weeks the would fix a leak across the street and at the same time replace the gas line to my house. Cool , I thought... one less thing for me to worry about.
I had installed new copper plumbing, all new
electric circuits, Central air and a new floor system in the kitchen to
take ceramic tile. I had re-plastered (except a drywall ceiling in
the north bedroom) and painted most the house with at least the
first coat in all the rooms. I had a worksheet page for
every room
with a check list of work completed and tasks yet to complete. It was
tough going doing the work while living in the house but time
and money were a premium so I had to pace myself between several
projects all at the same time. I was commuting from the house to
work an average of 150 miles each day leaving before sunrise working 9
to 12 hours a day and coming home in the dark.
The most serious slow down occurred in the Fall just before the disaster in January. I was almost finished with the new concrete base for the porch. In the rain working by myself in a middle of a concrete pour for the front porch base working with my small mixer, I slipped on a wet form board with a bag of concrete in my arms and heard and felt a very sharp pop as my ankle twisted and rotated inward onto the outside edge of my foot. My foot felt like it caught on fire and I went down hard - like a rock. I found out latter I had severely sprained the ligaments in my ankle and possibly broken it at the same time, but I just tightened up my laces on my boot and finished mixing the concrete for the pour. Unfortunately I had underestimated the number of bags of concrete I needed to get to my pour depth that I was aiming for but I was in too much pain to go to HomeDepot just to load up for just three more concrete bags in the pouring rain. Unfortunately the next week the weather really moved in and with my job taking up more of my time I had to wait till spring to finish putting the sand stone back on the porch area capping off the concrete.
Once sufficiently healed I had started up my lists again in the winter and started covering the old aggregate counter in the kitchen with smooth white ceramic tile, finishing out the kitchen wiring and getting the kitchen ready the floor tiles to be laid. I figured once the weather improved I could use the over 280 hours of accumulated vacation time I had worked my ass off earning and to seriously get to work finishing off my lists then onto replacing the windows and then getting the city to change out my electrical service so I could hookup that Central air I had put in. Did I mention I was commuting 150 miles a day to work and trying to squeeze all this work into weekends and nights? Thought so.
Come January 2004 I noticed the Gas company out and about the neighborhood replacing gas lines all over the place. Every morning they would be somewhere else in the neighborhood putting in gas lines. There had been some controversy over deregulating the gas industry and one of the thing kicked around was the age service lines into the houses in neighborhoods like mine. It seems that the legislature was willing to give Independent gas vendors the opportunity to get into the Oklahoma Gas market if they were willing to replace service lines older than 8 years. Now it never made it into law and the Gas industry was not deregulated but it did get the gas company to increase the rate in which they were repairing leaks and replacing service lines. They snuck a provision through the legislature in 1993 SB 294 that repealed a 1917 law which prohibited the gas company from charging a minimum rate for equipment like meters and service lines this giving the gas company a revenue stream to effect replacement and repairs. (How fortunate for them. A monopoly and also a guaranteed revenue stream.) The gas company for years was quite literally letting profits be blown in the wind because most of the gas leaks were opposite side of the meter. Now the consumer is paying they can stop it.
With so much infrastructure to replace and with the consumers fee money to spend, the gas company hired independent Contractors, like Northern Pipeline Construction Company, to do the work and replace the underground gas lines.
Murphy Rules Us All!
Time for my house. One day coming home from work I find a notice in between my glass storm door and the sill. Inside I find a notice and a contact to sign from ONG indicating hey were going to replace my service line to my house, for no charge. Free is a good price so I signed the contract. On Monday January 26th while getting ready for work some comes knocking on my door. An employee from Northern Pipeline Construction Company was standing on my unfinished porch and he indicated they were going to start work on the gas line. I thanked him and finished getting ready for work and took off. We had a light snow that night and there was a dusting on everything. I really did not envy that crew working in the cold. That evening I got home after dark and I could not see what was done , but at the time I assumed the work was complete and I relit my gas heat and water heater. On Wednesday I got another knock on the door and they indicated they were going to replace the line. I didn't question it I just ran downstairs and turned off the Hot water heater and turned off my gas heat. What I did not know was the crew was working in absence of valid water locates and while horizontal boring with a piercing tool called a "Hole Hog", they pierced an un-located and unmarked hi-pressure 12" water main while I was at work.
A water plume soared over 50 ft high cascading with destructive force upon the roof of 1212 Garfield over 30ft from the break severely damaging the roof and siding blowing off shingles and foaming like a waterfall. The water flow was so intense from the source of the break that a channel was cut by erosion that was 27 feet long and as deep as 6 feet.
The cut extended from a point of piercing moving in a westerly
direction to the house. In this path the water cut and undermined then
destroyed a large section of 4 foot wide large concrete and sandstone
sidewalk. Upon reaching the house the water rolled and cut a channel 17
feet long in a North South direction and undermined the foundation
stones cutting under the stem walls.
Once the water had breeched the foundation the water flooded and rolled though the crawl space destroying piers and further undermining basement and stem walls. With underlying earthen support compromised, walls subsided and fractured destroying the integrity of the foundation wall system thereby causing additionally flooding to the basement and permanently opening the structure to water infiltration. An exposed secondary sewer line intake servicing the former bathroom, floor drain and laundry area prevented the basement from filling with water but did not prevent 600 square foot area of the basement concrete floor being covered in up to 3 inches of silt.
The long cut to and in front of the house removed more three (3) cubic yards of soil and plants and the 38 ft cut beneath the house is estimated to have displaced an equal amount of soil. Other damages included the undermining and destruction of the separate garage foundation and stem walls, large silt deposits up to 6 inches depth in yard and damage to stone sidewalks and flowerbeds.
Four other houses on the block suffered significant damage to them from the disaster.
My brother called me at work while I was getting to ready to teach a class on Wireless Audio. He told me " Pat, you need to come home. There is water leak." UNDERSTATEMENT! I know now that he was probably in shock and the seriousness of the disaster just was not being conveyed in the conversation. I would have left immediately had I known the scope of the disaster, but instead I told him to call a plumber. He argued a bit with me , but I was at work and had a class to teach on 802.1 wireless streaming audio a hardware and software.