A 40 foot diameter sinkhole 30 feet deep opened up beneath the National Corvette Museum in Bowling Green, Kentucky, and swallowed 8 of the Corvettes on display. The museum’s security company alerted the staff members that the motion sensors had gone off at about 5:40 am on February 12 in the ‘SkyDome’ portion of the museum, separate from the main building. The museum called in a structural engineer and some Karst sinkhole experts who used a remote controlled helicopter to get photos and video inside the sinkhole. See those videos below. The main museum will be open as usual tomorrow, but the SkyDome will be closed indefinitely. [Source: NYTimes.com. Image: National Corvette Museum via NYTimes.com]
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Ever get that sinkhole feeling?
It takes planning and good leadership to decide on an effective solution to problems associated with a building asset. Recently, a large wholesale warehouse facility in Cincinnati began to experience large sinkholes across a significant portion of their customer parking lot. Unable to determine the problem at that time, store management was forced to close a portion of the parking lot, inconveniencing their customers. This particular parking lot is unusual in that a drainage system is located directly under the parking lot, consisting of a network of pipes spanning 250 feet in length and 12” in diameter. Joint separations in the underground drainage piping had caused enough soil erosion to create sinkholes in the asphalt. Engineers were concerned that other unknown sinkholes could cave in anytime, resulting in further costly damage, and potentially posing safety hazards to customers.
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It seems strange, (i) were sink holes not expected in and around the site of construction?
(ii) No geological-geotechniacal investigations prior to construction?
thanks
This is my worst nightmare! Being trapped in your car while you and other cars are just sinking into a hole! Cars are super dangerous anyway, and this kind of thing really brings that to light.
Still, it’s really fascinating how powerful mother nature is: being able to swallow 8 cars at once is very, very powerful.