Building to be demolished after Detroit road buckles, damaging business

DETROIT - A local business will need to be torn down and a road completely repaved in Southwest Detroit after the ground beneath the area shifted.

It's unclear what caused the damage underground, but it left a provisioning center on the verge of collapse and a major road cracked and elevated.

Employees at the dispensary were working at the time incident.

"Honestly, it felt like an earthquake or an explosion," said Nick Thomas, general manager at Stash Detroit. "I was the manager on duty so I rushed my two employees out as fast as I could."

The initial damage to the building was Saturday night, which caused a brick wall on one side of the business to collapse. But by Sunday, the carnage got even worse when Dearborn Street began rising several feet in the air as it split in half. 

No injuries were reported - but the smell of natural gas was in the air. 

DTE has confirmed it's on the scene working to understand what happened but said there was no evidence of an explosion. In a statement, it said:

"At this time, there is no evidence to indicate natural gas was the cause of the incident; a natural gas explosion did not occur. However, parts of DTE's gas and electric infrastructure were impacted by a water main break. DTE personnel are on-site to ensure public safety as well as the integrity of the natural gas and electric infrastructure systems."

Officials said there was no explosion but the ground swelled, leading to the damage. Experts said they have never anything like what happened before.

There was no disruption of utilities and drinking water was not impacted.

The city of Detroit has closed down the area indefinitely. A spokesperson said several city departments are working on the incident as well. 

At Stash Detroit, which will see its business torn down due to the danger of it collapsing, the hits kept on coming.

"Everything that is inside is insured but last night they did have people come in and ransack the place," Thomas said. "They got away with almost all of our inventory."