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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Dozens of Sinkholes in Plant City, Florida after Farmers Pump Extra Water Trying to Protect Crops from Bitter Cold
In early January of this year, Florida experienced some unusually cold temperatures that forced Plant City area strawberry farmers to pump extra groundwater to try to protect their crops. Over the course of about 11 days, the groundwater table in areas of Plant City was lowered by as much as 60-ft.
Almost immediately as many as 80 sinkholes began opening up around that region. Including ones that jeopardized a 500,000-gallon water tower, several that shut down an elementary school and numerous ones that shut down roads and highways and affected individual property owners. Around 20 local homeowners were left homeless after sinkholes left their house uninhabitable. For comparison, based on data from Florida Department of Environmental Protection’s Sinkhole Database for the period of 1998 to 2008 (the last year for which data is available), 77 sinkholes were reported to have opened up in Polk, Pasco and Hillsborough counties combined.
Local officials are seeking help from the State and FEMA to cover the estimated $3 million in damages. That figure is double what Plant City received from FEMA for the particularly bad 2004 hurricane season. And that dollar amount does not include what individual homeowners and property owners will be seeking from their insurance carriers. (Photos by Tampa Bay Online)
Read on for maps of Plant City sinkhole locations and more information.
Sinkhole in Florida opens overnight, swallows and kills man
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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.