trampled may 13 2017 - save the mallards

So this week was weird. As i said – last weekend was silent. And so refreshing. But monday morning came and at 530 the noises started and by 7am everything was loud as per usual. Loud in the am, loud after i got home from work. They tend to work till 6pm. Evening was fine – usual piles of dirt and debris and cranes and trucks all over.

Tuesday seemed the same. Long loud day.

Wednesday started very different. Rumbling at 530 like normal, general noise till about 7am, and then there was a noise, like a large machine was breaking up concrete, and it woke us. Awake enough to feel the house roll. The framed art on our bedroom wall rattled. So did the mirror. And then it happened again, and again. Loud banging in the lot, house rolling like an earthquake hit it. This happened, on and off, for over 35 minutes. Some quakes were a minute apart, some were every 3 to 5 minutes. Eveything in the house shook each time the tremors came.

I got out of bed and emailed one of the project supervisors to ask what was going on, because this was not something we had encountered in the last 5 months. He wrote back and said a piece of equipment was adjusted at 730 which may have caused the issue, and i explained in full detail what the previous 5 months were like and what was so diff about wed morning. He said he would look into it.

By wednesday afternoon, a seismagraph had been installed across the street and just to the left of our house. It is in a yellow cooler looking plastic box, and has an antenae that sticks up and a probe that goes down into the earth. Well, i thought, at least they are monitoring what's up.

All the work done on thurs and friday this week was quieter – all the cranes were in quieter gears. There was less noise and less rumbling. It was weird. I do not know if the quiet is simply because they realized they were being too loud for the paramaters they are working in, or if they turned everything down because now they are being recorded. But whatever – it was nice to have al ittle quieter of an experince.

Except that wed morning really threw us both for a loop. It was scary to have the house tremble like that. To have it happen so many times in a 35 or 40 minute time frame. What is that doing to our foundation and our sewer system? Ugh.

And now today is saturday. They started before 7am and just now finished at 6pm. The scene is ugly. So many huge piles of dirt and cement goo and machinery everywhere. It looks like a bomb went off. However – the big red bodied crane that has been parked in front of our living room window since january 2^nd has now been moved. It is elsewhere. It seems weird to look out and see it gone. I'm thankful – and maybe someone finally realized what a burden on the neighborhood that crane was. No matter where you were or who you were you could see it. It was part of why we could not sell our house. Maybe this means we will have better luck in a month or so.....

the crane that has moved - it sat in this spot for 5 months

the last tidbit from this week is that we're seeing and hearing how many animals that previously lived in the acres of clear cut forest, and in the wetlands on FORD property that were drained, now are trying to find homes. So many new birds in our trees, and so many more birds. More raccons and possums. The coyotes went to the henry ford estate and to the area near outer drive and ford road, or greenfield and ann arbor trail. And the rats went toward oakwood and outer d rive – residents are reporting rats the size of cats in their streets. Here – we had a momma mallard and her 15 babies IN OUR YARD looking for a safe place to make their home. Carl managed to keep the dogs away from them, and helped them out of the yard and down the street. But there is no water in our area – they had to go across one or 2 VERY busy streets to get anwhere close to a pond to be safe in. Momma mallard came home to where her instincts said she should be, and her home was gone. I hope she found somewhere safe to be. I hope we all do.  

trampled may 8th, 2017

the most amazing thing happened this past weekend.

NOTHING.

nothing happened.

you see, it rained on thursday and friday. rained all day. and the construction work does not take place in the rain. so on thursday and friday there were no rumbling cranes, no beep beeping vehicles, no cement trucks or clouds of dust. it was fantastic. we were able to sleep, in our bed, in the morning - something we have not been doing soundly for 5 months now.

and then the real miracle came. on saturday the ground was too mushy for any work to be done. so once again, for the third day in a row, we were able to sleep soundly past 7am. we got up, made breakfast, stepped out in the yard to play with the dogs. and it was quiet. totally quiet.

all day saturday, and all day sunday, for the first time in over 5 months, the entire FORD r&d campus was silent. no air conditioning, no furnaces, no belching buildings. no high powered vacuum trucks. no street cleaning, no lawn mowing, no cement trucks. there was not a sound from the entire complex. my husband and i were amazed.

the complete lack of noise, and the quiet atmosphere , reminded us of why we moved here in 2010. of why this had been, up until summer of 2016, such a wonderous place of calm and beauty.

two full days of absolute quiet.


i actually wrote to joe vicari (land management) and dcampus (head of current overhaul project) and thanked them for whatever gift the neighborhood was being given. told them how 2 days of absolute quiet were such a miracle, and suggested that if each weekend could be like this it would make living on the fringe of this project so much easier.


the solitude also reminded us of how happy and calm we are when there is no noise. up to then, all day, everyday, for months - we have been dealing with construction noise during the day and then building noise at night. LOUD building noise. high pitched, low pitched. and there are frequencies happening here, resonant frequencies, called INFRASOUND, that actually negatively impact human health. it is sound that falls below what a human can hear, but our bones and flesh can feel the sound waves. they cause nausea, dizziness, anxiety, depression, headaches and sleeplessness. the sound waves are esp harmful when humans are exposed to them for long periods of time, and can produce PTSD.


so - the low rumblings that have produced 15 new cracks in our walls and ceilings also have the ability to affect our mental and physical health. oh joy.


some neighbors came by sunday evening and commented on how quiet it was. how for the first time in a long time it was finally quiet in their house. they live about a half block up from us. they mentioned the low rumbling that has been ever present in their house for months now, as have neighbors 2 streets down. those neighbors described it as having a semi or mack truck parked next to their home for 8 plus hours a day. that on some days they cannot think or concentrate on their jobs because the noise and rumbling is so bad.


i do not want to celebrate these neighbors joining my ranks - but my goodness is it nice to not feel so alone in my issues.


this past week, around the first or second of the month, i discovered homeowners near us complaining online in a social media forum. there are people who live clear on the other side of the project, complaining about their houses rumbling and shaking 12 hours a day when dump trucks from the FORD project drive by their homes on Pelham street. that is a good half mile from where we are. south west of us. those folks are not dealing with any of the cranes or drilling or cement trucks, but simply hearing that an area somewhat distant from the project was having issues due to the truck routes of the dump trucks hauling away so many mounds of excavated earth from the auger holes was reassuring. sad - i do not want anyone to be suffering. and frustrating - it is a much wider and larger circle of disruption in our area than just here on elmdale.

then a woman chimed in who lives just around the corner from us. along donaldson. she talked about how sad she was that FORD clear cut the forest in front of her house, and how now she heard all the noise and her house shook and it was so ugly and dreadful compared to what she previously looked at. we emailed each other. we compared photos. we talked about how neither of us had been given any of the info we had requested. so across from my house the parking deck is going in. at the right hand end of the deck (if you are looking out my living room window) there will be a maintenance building constructed. that building will be directly across from her house. she wanted answers on what were the outer walls going to look like and what kind and how much shielding (walling, blocking) would be planted, and no one would answer her questions.


why is this happening in the midst of a neighborhood?  why didn't FORD offer to buy the blocks around the site and help us relocate? in her words - "they've taken this beautiful park like setting and ruined it". you know - i can't agree more.



today is may 8th, 2017. the parking deck work resumed at 7am today. the cranes dug deep holes with their augers. the dumptrucks hauled away earth. the cement trucks rumbled and threw cement dust into the sky. the workers are still working, and it 530pm. they are lowering rebar structures down into holes that will soon be filled with cement - the pile legs to set the deck on. from what was dug today - the deck will at least be in front of half of our yard. we'll see how the rest of the week goes. the last plan we were shown had the deck not so far over to our left.....but i hear the plans keep changing.

and while we were all told initially that this was a 5 year plan (it being one half of the ten year complete overhaul of 2 campuses) then why did FORD lease offices at fairlane mall and in taylor at masco for ten years? the employees on the 340 acre campus across from my house have been relocated for the next ten years.



what is next? when will the design center start? it will be directly to the left of our house. and to build it, according to the plans, other buildings have to be demolished. what a debacle. what a lousy place to have ended up on the front lines of. at least now i know - i am not alone in my frustration. having a few neighbors join me has made me feel validated in my struggle. our collective voice may never be enough to get answers or make change - but we can be informed together, and we can help other people in our community understand what is happening.


my final riff here - why won't bill ford ever answer any of the emails i send him? why won't he get involved? he must feel so high and mighty - like  he is the king, and we are his serfdom, his peons in the community. in his dreams he is probably driving those cranes and running each and every one of us over, grinding us down into the ground. and i'm sure he has a huge smile on his face while he's doing it.