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Short Stuff: Exploding Manholes · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hey, everybody walks into the podcast. Josh, and there's Chuck,
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: and there's Jerry. So let's get going. You found this stuff,
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: and I think I had heard of this before, because
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: I believe I just kind of happened upon it on
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: our website. But uh, this now scares me for when
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: I go to New York. I wasn't scared until you
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: just said that you were scared. Now I'm scared because
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: you would usually be scared before I was scared. Yeah,
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: but I guess I hadn't thought it through. And and actually,
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: you know the spoiler at the end, will will leave.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: It's not a ton of people actually get hurt. But
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: I read about exploding manhole covers, and I think that
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: that this is gonna like land on my head one
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: day and I will die. And you would if it
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: landed on your head, Yes, you would die, because we're
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: talking about exploding manhole covers and they've been known to go.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: I saw a hundred feet in the air at least fifty,
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: says the How Stuff Works article. And these things are
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: enormously heavy, like eighty five to three hundred pounds. And
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: for those of our friends who live outside the US
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: and Liberia. That's thirty five to thirty five. So the
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: mere fact that a manhole cover has not landed and
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: killed somebody landed on someone and killed them by now,
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: is sheer luck? It sounds that way, yeah, because it
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: happens a lot, especially depending like if you're in New York.
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: I mean, it happens in cities all over the country
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: for sure, but um, if you're in New York, you're
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: in the home of exploding manhole covers for a couple
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: of reasons where we'll talk about, um and it happens
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: pretty frequently. So, um it is. It does seem to
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: be what you just said, sheer luck that no one's
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: died from it yet, and maybe someone has and we
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: just hadn't found out about it because apparently the FDN
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: Y is not required to um report the number of
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: incidents and the only source of any numbers on this
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: stuff is con Edison and they're the ones who is
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: responsible for this thing, so they may be fudging the numbers. Well, yeah,
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: there's a council councilman named Donovan Richards where there was
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: at the time of this article, that has introduced or
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: reintroduced a bill that said, hey, we need more transparency
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: into this, and like you guys need to start issuing
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: like annual reports on how many of these things are
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: catching on, fire, smoking, exploding. Right, and the the fire
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: chief that had fire chief of f d N why
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: leaned into the mic and said, with all due respects,
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: up yours. The fire chief is John Travolta. By the way,
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: his and his dalmatian went right now, he did that
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: like flicking underneath the chin thing with his paw. Man,
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: I wish I could teach my dog to do that.
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: Oh man, Yeah, they'd have to be able to turn
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: their paw around. That would be odd YouTube sensation. Yeah,
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: I think I think the world would forgive the dog
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: if if for not turning the pall around, Like just
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: just doing it in any way would be pretty pretty great.
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: Does mama know any tricks? Yeah, she can deal with cards.
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: But it's it. I finally got Nico shaking now, so
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: consider that a big victory. Oh yeah, that is a
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: big victory. I um, I taught Mo to give high five.
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: She's pretty good at that, okay, high five, but then
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: every once in a while she'd be like such a
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: brow thing to do, you know, right, all right, So
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: I think we should talk about why this actually what
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: what events lead to this to happen? Yeah, there's actually
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: like a there's science behind it. Yeah. So let's say
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: we're just gonna keep picking on New York because their
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: underground system and their infrastructure everyone knows can be quite
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: old and dangerous at times. It's it's the again though,
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: it's the home of exploding man holes, right for a reason.
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: So um, New York has the large, the world's largest
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: and oldest electrical system underground electrical system underground. Good catch man.
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: So they have the largest and oldest they have just
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: my emboggling amount of cables, thousand miles of cable and
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: two hundred sixty four thousand man holes, right yeah, initially
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: when because they they talk about vented manholes to help
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: solve this, and I was like, just replace them all.
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: And then I saw two hundred sixty four thousand, I
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: was like, right, And I imagine that each one costs
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: a pretty decent amount because they make them heavy so
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: that you know, teenagers don't make off with them or something.
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: I would guess why else would you make them heavy? Uh,
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: I don't know. It's a good question, because it means
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: make them sturdier cars drive over these things. Okay, Okay,
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: that's one. They tried balsa wood and it didn't work
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: out right well because everybody kept stealing the balsa wood
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: man hole covers. So. Um, So you have like this,
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: like ninety thousand miles of cable or wire underground and
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: hundreds of thousands of manhole covers. So you have a
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: recipe for disaster. Considering that that thousand miles of wiring,
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: five percent of it is almost a hundred years old
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: or older. Yeah, and and they're supposed to have a
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: lifespan of about forty years. So if you've got a
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: hundred year old wire down there, you're you're asking for
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: trouble when it rains or snows, or when saltwater gets
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: in there from salting streets. And that's basically what happens. Yeah,
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: So this is this is this is the science behind it.
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: They actually know what causes exploding manhole covers, at least
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: in New York. Right. What you have is these very
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: old wiring and you have, um, you know, even like
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: a manhole cover that isn't grated or slotted to allow gases,
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: event like, it's not water tight, so when it snows
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: New York ice is over there assaults their streets, and
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: so the slush when the snow melts becomes saltwater. And
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: over time, the saltwater goes and trickles down and it
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: corrodes the wires, the insulation around the wires. And these
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: are wires that these giant New York rats have already
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: been mealing on for years for some trees. That's another
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: big problem with it, too, right, I mean, like fifty
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: pound rats just taken out these wires as much as
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: they like because they love to eat rubber insulation apparently,
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: because they're stupid the worst. So you've got these wires,
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: they're starting to get freight. You they're getting freed in
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: part by the salt water. But the other thing that
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: the saltwater is doing is that when these wires are
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: freight and the actual wiring itself is exposed, salt water
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: is particularly conductive. So because of this, the chlorine and
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: the sodium ions in there, they have an electrical charge themselves,
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: and water is conductive by itself to like, you know,
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: there's like the whole thing from um Fear and Loathing
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: in Las Vegas, where um Laslow wants hunter Thompson to
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: drop the toaster in the or the hair dryer in
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: the bathtub with I mean there's a grape fruit at
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: his head instead. That's because water is conductive, and Laslow
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: was hipped to that kind of thing, right, Yeah. And
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: I remember in in high school, even like when we
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: did conductivity experiments, it was always saline. It was always saltwater, right,
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: And so so water is conductive. Saline or saltwater is
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: super conductive. So when you um, it's not actually super conductive,
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: but you know what I mean, not in the scientific term, right.
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: So when you have this frayed wire that saltwater comes
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: in contact with the wire arcs that in and of
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: itself is not good because it's going to short out
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: your electrical system. But the problem is is when those
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: wires are afraid and the insulation is worn away, it
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: starts the insulation itself starts to kind of smolder and
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: bubble and and and flame up itself, which produces gases. Yeah,
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: so that's the big problem. So what you've got down
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: there is um gas is being released, gases building up,
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: building up pressure. Then you have that electrical arc that's
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: like a bolt of lightning. Basically those two things meet
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: up and say how you doing, and it ignites and
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: it could lead to and like we said, sometimes it's
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: smoldering and smoking. I've seen them literally just on fire,
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: which is almost as disconcerting. It's like, hell, it totally is.
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: But sometimes it will actually if they meet in the
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: right way, into the right conditions, it will cause that
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: explosion and send a possibly three pound manhole cover a
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: hundred m well fifty ft into the air. Right, well,
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: let's take a break real quick and we'll come back
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: because we've got more stuff on exploding manholes that you're
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: gonna love, Okay, dude. So the gas goes boom and
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: the manhole cover goes flying into the air, and the
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: House of Works articles did a really good job of
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: of comparing that to UM, an internal combustion engine, like
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: the pistons in it, and it's it's it's basically the
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: same thing. Like the piston presses air down and a
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: little bit it takes just a little bit of fuel
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: mixed in with the air to make it combustible because
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: it's compressed. And then when you introduce UM fire through
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: the spark plug, then that that compressed gas air expands
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: very quickly it explodes, is what you call it, and
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: then the piston goes up. That's the exact same thing
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: that's happening in exploding manhole when there's gas build up, right, Yeah,
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: it's just that pressure of the compressed gases suddenly released
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: violently and it explodes outward. And again it's the same
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: thing that's happening in your car engine, but on a
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: New York City street. Yes, I'm reading this stuff. I'm
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: thinking this is cool and a little scary. But I thought,
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: all right, but this happens probably like once every few years,
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: or a few times a year, maybe in two thousand sixteen,
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: and this is manhole incidents just in New York. So
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: as this exploding manhole incidents or just like catching fire
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: or smoking or whatever. I think any time a manhole
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: cover goes or a manhole goes awry, they would call
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: it an incident. In two thousand sixteen, there were nineteen
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: hundred and eight of them, and in two thousand fifteen
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: there were almost three thousand, eight hundred manhole incidents. Yeah,
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: which is a great fan name, actually manhole incident. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: it does all sorts of stuff to the imagination or
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: the manhole incident, maybe um or balsa wood manhole I
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: saw that in the same year, two thousand fifteen, in February,
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: February alone, and I'm sorry, in one week in February,
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: there was six hundred manhole incidents in New York. How many,
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: I mean do the math. That's a lot in a day.
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: And again, this is just what's con Edison is is
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: telling the media like, who knows if there's more. There's
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: nobody running around counting all this. The only people who
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: have their finger on the pulse of a eploding manhole
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: covers is Kan Edison, and you know they're the ones
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: who are responsible for it. Yeah. So despite this um,
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: it turns out remarkably that people are usually not injured.
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: It's sort of a rare thing for an actual human
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: injury to happen. And as far as I know, there's
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: never been someone killed by a manhole cover exploding. That
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: is not true. Oh really, I looked it up, man,
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: But it's not in New York. There there there has
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: to be somebody who died in New York New York.
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: Boston has another problem with it itself, like I guess
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: Chicago does, like any major city with an old electrical infrastructure,
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: manhole covers and salty snowmelt is going to have exploding
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: manhole covers. DC has a problem with it, but there's
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: comes from natural gas supposedly, and they only have like
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: an average of like thirty eight a year, I think.
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: But Boston has a problem with it too. And in
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: uh two thousand sixteen, there was a freak accident where
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: high school art teacher was driving in Boss and a
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: manhole cover exploded and rose up just enough to come
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: through her windshield from a movie and killed her. Um instantly. Yeah, man,
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: if that happens to you, your number is up. Yeah.
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: That's like when the tree fell on the guy's truck
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: across from my house at times sitting in a stoplight. Yeah.
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: Or the actress who was in Chicago riding her bike
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: through the park and a tree fell over on her.
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: I think we talked about that, like a tree falls
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: on you while you're moving, like that's yeah, you're you're
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: not escaping that, No, you're not. Man, that is really sad.
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: What it is? What a terrible way to end? Yeah,
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: I know, Well here's it gets even worse. She was
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: a beloved art teacher, as they all are Yeah, well
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: I don't know. There's the jerk art teachers too, are
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: mad they're teaching you know. Uh, well, let's see. Thanks
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: a lot for joining us. If you want to hang
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: out with us, we're all over social media. Just look
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: us up and uh you can hang out with us
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: at all. I'm on the web stuff you should know. Uh,
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: and we'll see you next time. Watch out for those manholes.
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: Everybody m