I just discovered this web site recently or I would have reported this one much sooner.
On Feb 15th, at 3:15PM we were victims of a natural gas explosion that was caused by the boring of subcontractors hired by Comcast Cable of Taylor, MI to lay fiber optic cable in our community. They were across the street digging literally right on top of the yellow flag that MissDig (the gas company's way of marking the buried gaslines) had placed in the ground that week.
My husband and I had noticed one of the contractors digging earlier and commented to each other about where he was digging. Then the blast came. It destroyed the house across the street. They had been digging within 15 or so feet of it. And it melted the siding off our house and several others around us. It also lifted the ground due to the blast.
The melted siding
The house across the street
The blaze lasted for over two hours because of the weather. It was about 10 degrees and had been below freezing for over a month at that point. The gas company took two hours to soften the ground enough to get to the cut off valve to stop the blaze. They also could not put out the blaze because the same contractors had siphoned off the water from the surrounding fire hydrants without notifying anyone in the community per community regulations.
Apparently this is not the first natural gas explosion in the Detroit metro area caused by Comcast and its subcontractors.
I am writing this just to warn anyone who lives near natural gas lines and sees Comcast or any of it's contractors digging to be especially vigilant. Their contractors seem to have trouble knowing what the gas flags mean.
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