Offbeat

From the article:

The pipe's unexpected elevation from the ground occurred at a sewer construction site where workers had been connecting an existing sewer line with a channel designed to hold excess rainwater to prevent flooding.

The pipe was being used as a retaining structure to keep the surrounding soil from collapsing during the operation, officials said. A short time earlier, workers had drained water from the pipe, which may have caused the empty apparatus to float, they said.