A workers on Dec. 23, 2016, climbs down into to a large sinkhole that opened days earlier on Lopatcong Township's Wordsworth Lane, the same street where a snow plow was almost swallowed by a sinkhole in 2015
© Steve NovakA workers on Dec. 23, 2016, climbs down into to a large sinkhole that opened days earlier on Lopatcong Township's Wordsworth Lane, the same street where a snow plow was almost swallowed by a sinkhole in 2015
Santa has more than stockings to fill on Wordsworth Lane.

A huge sinkhole opened this week on the Lopatcong Township road -- nearly in the same spot where the earth almost swallowed a snow plow in 2015.

"I keep having visions of some 'Far Side' cartoon," 63-year-old Dave Thomas quipped Friday evening as workers tended to the maw at the end of his driveway. "We'll either be living on top of a tiny spike of land ... or in the middle of a lake."

Mayor Tom McKay estimated the hole was 20 feet wide and eight to 10 feet deep when it opened Thursday morning, fortunately before any school buses went down the road.

Residents said the water company, Aqua New Jersey, was fixing a leak in the water main on Wednesday that lead to the bigger problem.

A company spokesperson could not be reached late Friday afternoon, though an alert on the Aqua website said service was disrupted Wednesday on Wordsworth Lane due to a water main break.

"It is just concerning as a homeowner that we are getting regular leaks on the waterline that are causing sinkholes of various sizes," another resident, Curtis Vielstich, said in an email. "Prior to our massive sinkhole, we had at least two more smaller ones up the road."