State Recommends More Evacuations After Detroit-Area Fuel Leak

On Sept. 5, state officials in Michigan recommended more home evacuations in a Detroit suburb following an earlier fuel leak at the Ford Flat Rock Assembly Plant that spread flammable vapor in sewers.

Response teams were set to go door-to-door to inform affected areas in Flat Rock, according to the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services and Wayne County.

State officials said residents in the area bordered by Interstate 75 to the east, Gibraltar Road to the north, Cahill Road to the west and Woodruff Road to the south evacuate. Additionally, state officials said there’s a broader area of Flat Rock under investigation for potential exposure to benzene vapor.

“We don’t believe there is any imminent danger to residents at this time,” Elizabeth Hertel, the health department’s director, said at a news conference. She said officials were still asking people in the impacted areas to leave “out of an abundance of caution.”

State officials on Sept. 3 confirmed that the source of benzene vapor was a fuel leak at the Ford Flat Rock Assembly Plant. The Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy said an estimated 1,000 to 3,000 gallons of unleaded gasoline spilled into the sewers.

Ford on Sept. 1 discovered “what originally looked to be a relatively small leak in a pipe that carries gasoline used to fuel vehicles built at the plant,” said Bob Holycross, Ford’s vice president of sustainability, environment and safety engineering. But on Sept. 3, the company “determined that the scale of the fuel leak was much larger, and that Ford is the likely source of the problem in Flat Rock, for which we apologize,” he said.