An Anchor Hit Mackinac's Oil Pipes. The Crew Didn't Notice.

On Easter Sunday 2018, a 12,000-pound anchor dragged across the bottom of the Straits of Mackinac and dented two oil pipes from 1953. The crew did not notice for about 30 hours. Enjoyed this? Subscribe for more buried-machine and heavy-equipment history: 👉 Machinery Vault:    / @machinery-vault   Almost every video about the Mackinac Bridge starts in 1957. But a couple of miles west of the bridge, two steel pipelines have been lying on the lakebed since 1953. That is Enbridge's Line 5. We go through the 1953 easement and its 75-foot rule, the Merritt-Chapman and Scott crews who worked these waters first on the pipes and then on the bridge foundations, and the NTSB report on the tug Clyde S VanEnkevort and the barge Erie Trader: an unsecured anchor, a misadjusted brake, three damaged power cables and a cable repair bill of more than 100 million dollars. The pipes held. Then the hard question: if one loose anchor could reach them by accident, why are they still down there in 2026? We cover the 2018 tunnel agreement, the Michigan Supreme Court ruling and the Army Corps permit of summer 2026, and the empty truck that broke open Line 5 in Wisconsin in August. More from the Vault: 🚢 One Ship Could Drop America's Scariest Bridge. Nobody Checked.    • One Ship Could Drop America's Scariest Bri...   🛢️ What Actually Happened to the Alaska Pipeline Fleet (1975)    • What Actually Happened to the Alaska Pipel...   🏚️ America Can't Fix Wolf Creek Dam. It Can Only Hold It Off.    • America Can't Fix Wolf Creek Dam. It Can O...   📌 CHAPTERS 00:00 The anchor nobody noticed 02:33 Two pipes older than the bridge 05:20 Easter Sunday 2018 11:48 The tunnel that never started 13:50 An empty truck in Wisconsin SOURCES NTSB, Marine Accident Brief MAB-19/12, Anchor Contact of Erie Trader/Clyde S VanEnkevort: https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/A... NTSB, Pipeline Accident Report PAR-12/01, Marshall, Michigan: https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/A... State of Michigan, Straits of Mackinac Pipe Line Easement (1953): https://www.michigan.gov/psab/-/media... Michigan EGLE, Line 5 overview: https://www.michigan.gov/egle/about/f... Enbridge, Line 5 design and construction: https://www.enbridge.com/Projects-and... Mackinac Bridge Authority, Fact Sheet: https://www.mackinacbridge.org/wp-con... Office of Governor Snyder, Agreement on Line 5 tunnel (3 Oct 2018): https://www.michigan.gov/formergovern... Michigan Tech, Independent Risk Analysis, executive summary (2018): https://www.michigan.gov/psab/-/media... Michigan Public, Michigan Supreme Court throws out state approval of Line 5 tunnel (31 Jul 2026): https://www.michiganpublic.org/transp... Michigan Public, Army Corps approves Line 5 tunnel permit (12 Aug 2026): https://www.michiganpublic.org/enviro... WCMU, Enbridge says Line 5 tunnel facing significant delay (28 Aug 2026): https://www.wcmu.org/local-regional-n... Wisconsin Public Radio, Enbridge leak largest reported oil and gas spill in Wisconsin: https://www.wpr.org/news/federal-data... #heavyequipment #construction #bulldozer #excavator #engineering #machinery #disaster #history #abandoned #mackinacbridge #line5 #michigan