http://www.wacotrib.com/news/content/news/stories/2006/02/27/20060227wacsinkholeupdate.html
University-Parks sinkhole becomes odd attraction
From staff reports
Monday, February 27, 2006
As the sun at last prevailed over Central Texas on Sunday, city of Waco
officials got a closer look at the rain-drenched sinkhole that consumed
part of University-Parks Drive early Saturday morning.
Sewage leaking from a pipe with some runoff going into the Brazos River
was stopped by city workers at about 11 p.m. Saturday, said Larry Holze,
Waco city spokesman.
Gas flow from another pipe also was stopped, although Holze said there
was never a leak.
“We've eliminated all the hazards,” he said. “We are ready to move in
(today) and take care of areas of concern and rebuild the street to the
way it was.”
No services were interrupted for nearby residents, Holze said. It was
unknown how long it would take to reconstruct the street.
Everyday Wacoans took advantage of Sunday's warm weather to view the
rubble along the Brazos River. Among those eyeing the chasm were
46-year-old Mark Leazar and his 10-year-old son, Kyle.
“I saw it in the paper and my son decided he wanted to see it,” Leazar
said, looking at the cave-in, about 15 feet deep and at least that wide
where part of University-Parks Drive used to be. “That's one heck of a
sinkhole.”
Leazar and his son surveyed the entire chasm, which runs west from
University-Parks Drive about halfway between Washington and Jefferson
avenues along grassy athletic grounds near A.J. Moore Academy, where the
sinkhole sank part of a goalpost.
Orange city barricades run even farther west, curving to the north near
the intersection of Fourth Street and Jefferson Avenue, about 40 yards
from St. Francis Catholic Church. Fourth Street was blocked off by city
officials near Columbus Avenue.
St. Francis pastor Sergio Lopez said the nearby sinkhole wasn't
mentioned when church members gathered to worship Sunday morning but
some referred to it before and afterward, blaming the situation on rain
and drainage from what used to be a creek.
“I've even heard some people say maybe this might work out good, that
they might get their creek back,” Lopez said.
No one, however, expressed any anxiety about the sinkhole claiming the
church, he said.
James Adcock, 50, standing near Jefferson Avenue, said other factors
might have contributed to the sinkhole, including a huge pit where, his
father told him, downtown rubble from the 1953 killer tornado was
eventually bulldozed and buried.
“You can even kind of tell where the dip is,” he said, pointing to a
part of the field running behind Courtyard by Marriott, which was
briefly evacuated Saturday. “We're kind of standing on a little bit of
it now.”
City officials spent much of the weekend gauging the damage, not only to
University-Parks Drive but gas lines, water lines, fiber optics and
sewer lines running along the ground where the sinkhole developed.
City officials have not fully determined the cause of the cave-in,
although they still believe rain was a major factor.
“Let me put it this way,” Holze said, “if we would not have had any
rain, we would not have had a break.”
Hope Turrubiartez, 31, expressed thanks that Saturday's cave-in didn't
cause more damage.
“That is huge,” she said as she prepared to photograph it Sunday
morning. “They're lucky it didn't take somebody's car with it.”
® 2006 wacotrib
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Fundies and trolls are cordially invited to
shove a wooden cross up their arses and rotate
at a high rate of speed. I trust you'll
be 'blessed' with a cornucopia of splinters.
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