Sinkholes
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Bizarro Earth

Major sinkhole forms in Atlanta, Georgia in Cherokee County

John Spink and Cailin O'Brien
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Thu, 11 Jul 2013 07:01 UTC
Image
y residents woke Thursday morning to find a sinkhole that had formed over night on East Cherokee Drive
A water main break in Cherokee County caused a major sinkhole to form under East Cherokee Drive at Holly Springs Road early Thursday morning.

Cherokee County Sheriff spokesman Lt. Jay Baker said that the water main break was called in a little after 2 a.m., on Thursday morning. As deputies closed the road, the asphalt began to sink.

Then the road collapsed.

"Fortunately, we were getting calls about it when water was coming through the road," Baker said. "If it had just happened, it could have been deadly for somebody who drove into it."

The Cherokee County Water and Sewage Authority turned off water for about five houses in the area. Spokesman Dwight Turner said a 20-foot section of PVC pipe had split under East Cherokee Drive, causing water to leak out of the road.

"[The pipe] is probably 30 years old or older," he said. "We've been replacing PVC pipe with ductile iron pipe for many, many years and we will continue to. But we haven't gotten it all done yet. And that's just one of the things that happens."

Ductile iron pipes are thought to last for several decades, Turner said.
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Bad Guys

Sinkhole Joliet Township, Illinois: Woman injured, then pulled to safety as ground gives way beneath her

Brian Stanley
The Herald-News
Wed, 10 Jul 2013 18:36 UTC
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Tina Sanchez
One moment Tina Sanchez was standing on the pavement, the next she was in it.

Sanchez had to be pulled out of a sinkhole Monday by East Joliet Firefighters when the ground gave way in the mobile home park where she lives at 1703 S. Chicago St.

About 6 p.m. Sanchez and her son were walking past a nearby home when she stopped to talk to a neighbor near a parking space and a steel drain, she said. Without warning, she fell into the ground and had to hold on to her son and try to brace her feet against the drain, she said.

"I was freaking out," Sanchez said. "The more I kept trying to get up, the more I kept falling in."
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Map

'Major' sinkhole opens in Dorchester County, South Carolina

Mark Davenport
live5news.com
Mon, 15 Jul 2013 12:14 UTC
sinkhole SC
Another sinkhole has cropped up in the Lowcountry, according to the South Carolina Department of Transportation.

SCDOT spokesman Bob Kudelka said a washout closed Wire Road in Dorchester County on Monday. Wire Road is located about half a mile from the Orangeburg County line in Reevesville.

On-site SCDOT engineer David Pilch said the first warning of a sinkhole came Sunday night on a call by the South Carolina Highway Patrol.

Pilch says when his crews arrived in the morning, the sinkhole was five feet wide and several feet deep. Those measurements changed early in the afternoon when Kudelka reported the sinkhole grew to 10 feet deep and seven feet wide.

Monday morning both lanes of Wire Road were closed.
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Arrow Down

Louisiana sinkhole depth exceeds estimates official says


The Town Talk
Tue, 16 Jul 2013 17:14 UTC
sinkhole
© Gerald Herbert/APTexas Brine, Inc. spokesman Sonny Cranch highlights work being done to remediate the approximately 22-acre sinkhole, seen behind him, last month in Bayou Corne.
An Assumption Parish official says the deepest part of the 22-acre sinkhole near Bayou Corne is at least 500 feet deep, and not between 110 to 220 feet deep that has been estimated by Texas Brine.

John Boudreaux, director of the Assumption Parish Office of Homeland Security, said previous depth reports released by Texas Brine Co. may have been inaccurate because the company's sonar did not penetrate debris fields inside the sinkhole.

The swampland hole emerged last August after a Texas Brine salt dome cavern failed deep underground. That failure forced the evacuation of 350 residents for almost a year.

Comment: Watch here as a local attempts to measure the depth of the sinkhole... and runs out of line!



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Green Light

Zimmerman acquitted of Trayvon Martin murder


RT
Sat, 13 Jul 2013 03:01 UTC
George Zimmerman
© AFP Photo / Joe Burbank-Pool
A jury in Florida has ruled that George Zimmerman is not guilty on all charges relating to the murder of unarmed African-American teenager Trayvon Martin. The high-profile case sparked a massive national debate on race and guns in the United States.

Twenty-nine-year-old Zimmerman was acquitted on Saturday of all charges relating to the fatal shooting of Martin. The former neighborhood watch volunteer could have been sentenced to life in prison for second-degree murder or up to 30 years for manslaughter if he was found guilty.

Martin, 17, was shot over a year ago by Zimmerman, who claimed he acted in self-defense. The prosecution argued that Zimmerman was guilty of second-degree murder, stating that he racially profiled the unarmed teen and assumed he was a criminal when he saw him walking through a gated community in Sanford. They claimed that Zimmerman tracked the boy down and started the fight that led to the shooting.

The verdict was reached by a panel of six women jurors, 15 months after Martin's death and six miles away from where the incident took place.
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Bizarro Earth

Crews find child trapped in Indiana sinkhole

Cassie Hart
KSTP.com
Fri, 12 Jul 2013 20:27 UTC
Sinkhole
© Twitter/ABC7 ChicagoCrews trying to dig an 8 y/o boy out of sink hole along the Ind. lakefront near Mt Baldy in Michigan City.
Emergency crews were on the scene Friday in northern Indiana looking for a boy who fell into a hole in the sand near the Lake Michigan shoreline near Mount Baldy in Michigan City.

Officers at the Michigan City Police Department and the LaPorte County Sheriff's Office confirm to The Associated Press that an 8-year-old boy fell into a hole about 8 feet deep about 4:30 p.m. central time.

Michigan City police, fire and Department of Natural Resources used heavy equipment to find the child. WSBT reports the boy's family was moved from the scene to the beach around 6 p.m.

The boy was pulled from the sinkhole. No word in his condition.
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Alarm Clock

Sinkhole opens in Weaverville, North Carolina

John Le
WLOS.com
Fri, 12 Jul 2013 15:08 UTC

As we gain ground on record rainfall totals, some businesses are losing ground in Weaverville. George Bielick of Asheville has seen enough.
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Blackbox

Louisiana 22-acre sinkhole forces hard choice on longtime neighbors

Littice Bacon-Blood
Associated Press via Yahoo News
Mon, 08 Jul 2013 11:51 UTC
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Texas Brine spokesman Sonny Cranch said 92 buyout offers have been made, with 44 accepted so far.
The sob is deep and exhaled on a frustrated sigh. "I cannot stand this!" The words burst from Annette Richie and ping off the bare walls of the empty living room as her neighbors of 20 years, Bucky and Joanie Mistretta, recall happier times along Bayou Corne.

"I know, I know," Joanie Mistretta said, soothing her. "You come back now and it's just sad."

They were supposed to be planning camping trips, cookouts and potlucks. Instead, the Mistrettas, the Richies and many neighbors in the swampy Assumption Parish community are packing up decades' worth of belongings, chased from waterfront homes that were supposed to be retirement nests by a gas-emitting, 22-acre sinkhole less than a mile away.

The sinkhole, discovered Aug. 3, resulted from a collapsed underground salt dome cavern about 40 miles south of Baton Rouge. After oil and natural gas came oozing up and acres of the swampland liquefied into muck, the community's 350 residents were advised to evacuate.

Additional images
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Bizarro Earth

Ohio sinkhole swallows car; driver climbs ladder


The Independent
Wed, 03 Jul 2013 18:19 UTC
Ohio Sinkhole
© Associated Press/Lt. Matthew HertzfeldThis photo provided by the Toledo, Ohio Fire and Rescue Department shows a car at the bottom of a sink hole caused by a broken water line in Toledo, Ohio Wednesday, July 3, 2013. Police say the driver, 60-year-old Pamela Knox of Toledo, was shaken up and didn't appear hurt but was taken to a hospital as a precaution.
A northwest Ohio sinkhole has swallowed a car traveling down a street and briefly trapped the driver, who climbed out after authorities gave her a ladder.

Toledo police Sgt. Joe Heffernan says a water main break beneath the road may have caused the sinkhole Wednesday. The hole is estimated to be at least 10 feet deep.

Police say driver Pamela Knox didn't appear hurt but was shaken up and was taken to a hospital as a precaution. Heffernan says Knox saw the vehicle in front of her start to slip into the hole but drive beyond it. He says Knox couldn't avoid it.

Officials used a crane to pull the car from the hole. Repairs to the road are expected to take days.

Source: The Associated Press
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Bizarro Earth

Sinkhole raises concern in West Hempfield, Pennsylvania

Ryan Robinson
Lancaster Online
Wed, 26 Jun 2013 12:43 UTC
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© lancasteronline.com
A large sinkhole opened up near Route 23 in West Hempfield Township on Tuesday - and it might be fixed very soon.

The sinkhole is 20 to 25 feet deep and ranges from 8 to 10 feet wide at the surface to 30 to 40 feet wide underground, township police Sgt. Russell Geier said.

The hole is in a retention-pond area about 50 feet north of Route 23, near Corporate Boulevard.

Dale Getz has worked as the township's director of public works for five years, and in municipal government for about 20 years.

The sinkhole is the largest of the five or six he has seen during that time, but curious residents should keep their distance, he said.

"It wouldn't be advisable to get near it, because there's no stable ground underneath," he said.
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