Does a video authentically show cars frozen in one or two feet of ice on a residential street? Yes, the video is real: It was related to a water pipeline burst that happened on February 17, 2025, in a Detroit neighborhood. Lead Stories geolocated the footage to a nearby street corner and the upload date was consistent with the timeline of events.
The video (archived here and here) was uploaded on a TikTok channel named "Yeni Sevilla349" on February 19, 2025, with the following description:
Parecia una película auq lamentable no es haci muchas casas dañadas #DetroitMichigan #parati
This is the video in question
Yeni Sevilla349 on TikTok
Parecia una película auq lamentable no es haci muchas casas dañadas #DetroitMichigan #parati
On February 19, 2025, in a story titled "Detroit water line flood: 133 households in hotels, claim form is live," The Detroit Free Press reported (archived here):
A nearly 12-foot section of pipe is expected to be replaced following the water main break that flooded homes in southwest Detroit and caused rescues in rafts earlier this week, officials say. Meanwhile, 133 households stayed in hotels Tuesday night, home inspections were underway and a claim form was slated to go live in Spanish and English on Wednesday.
The city and its associated water supply agencies, Great Lakes Water Authority and the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department, continued efforts Wednesday to rectify the damage done when a 54-inch steel transmission line built in the 1930s ruptured Monday morning.
The Great Lakes Water Authority also released a statement (archived here) that said:
DETROIT - The Great Lakes Water Authority (GLWA) continues its critical role as a part of the broader emergency response to a break on a 54-inch steel water transmission main at Beard and Rowan in Southwest Detroit that occurred in the early morning hours of Monday, February 17, 2025.
Lead Stories was able to geolocate the video to the corner of Lisbon Street and North Green Street in Detroit:
(Image source: composite of Google Streetview imagery and Yeni Sevilla video screenshot, created by Lead Stories on February 20, 2025 at 13:00:32 UTC)
This location is just a few hundred feet from the corner of Beard Street and Rowan Street where the pipe break was reported to have happened.
(Image source: Google Maps, created by Lead Stories on February 20, 2025 at 13:02:54 UTC)
