Sinkhole makes dozens evacuate

Some residents of the Orlando apartments move out as rains threaten to increase the 150-foot-wide hole.

Compiled from Times wires
© St. Petersburg Times
published June 13, 2002

ORLANDO -- With a 150-foot-wide, 60-foot-deep sinkhole menacing their apartment buildings, dozens of evacuated residents worried Wednesday that forecast rains could cause the giant hole to grow bigger.

Geological experts said water could further destabilize the ground that collapsed with a loud boom Tuesday afternoon, swallowing some large oak trees, park benches and a sidewalk.

"That's the worst thing that could happen," geotechnical engineer Mark Canty said. "If it rains, there's the potential for the hole to start moving again."

But although the National Weather Service had forecast a 60 percent chance of afternoon showers and thunderstorms for Orlando, no rain had fallen by late afternoon.

Meanwhile, apartment workers took measures to prevent erosion if and when the rain did begin. They draped a heavy plastic liner across the slope of the sinkhole closest to the dwellings and hooked up pipes to divert rain runoff from rooftops to a retention pond.

Two buildings of 20 units each at the three-story Woodhill Apartments in western Orange County had to be evacuated Tuesday when the hole opened about 5:15 p.m. The lip of the crater was within 6 feet of a stairway.

Electricity to the units was turned off, and residents were ordered out. Many worked Tuesday night into morning to move their belongings into empty units offered to them around the complex.

Sabeela Khan was cooking dinner Tuesday when a worker banged on her door and ordered her and her husband, Kamal, to leave immediately.

"It was pretty scary because it was just sucking everything up," she said.

Gary Kuhns, a senior engineer hired by Wilson Co., which owns the apartments, said the sinkhole appeared to have stabilized. "It shouldn't collapse any further," he said.

Nevertheless, Kuhns indicated it could be several weeks before the sinkhole is filled in and people can safely return to the apartments.

Geologists were also watching a smaller sinkhole that opened about 15 feet from the giant one in the complex's grassy, bench-lined park. The smaller sinkhole was about 50 feet wide. It also had not opened much further since Tuesday.

In Wednesday morning's muggy heat, residents carried out beds, couches and clothes. Whatever they or their cars couldn't carry, they stacked on the grass until larger vehicles were available.

The Red Cross set up tables of McDonald's breakfast items in the apartment complex office for the displaced residents.

Some residents elected to leave for good. Erika Smith, a 35-year-old nurse, sat on her plush, green sofa on the lawn studying a book about prescription drugs. Smith said the complex managers had offered her another apartment, and one month free rent for her troubles.

"They gave us another apartment, but it's musty and horrible," she said, waiting for her husband to drive in with their truck and cart away the sofa. She said they would stay in a hotel.

"We're out of here," she said. "We are gone."

A more philosophical view was taken by Lecia Lane, 33. The Red Cross placed her in a hotel Tuesday night, but she returned early Wednesday to a vacant unit offered to her.

"It's nothing to get angry about," said the nurse, who is eight months pregnant, as friends helped pack her belongings. "It was a natural disaster so you can't blame it on anyone."

This is Central Florida's second large sinkhole in recent weeks. On May 29, a 10-foot-deep, 15-foot-wide sinkhole collapsed part of Interstate 4 in Lake Mary, about 15 miles north of Orlando. It took 10 days -- and 1,570 cubic yards of poured concrete -- to repair the damage.

Twenty-one years ago, the largest sinkhole in modern Central Florida history announced its presence by swallowing a tree as a shocked homeowner looked out her window.

Before it was finished, the Great Winter Park Sinkhole had swallowed her home, a luxury car dealership and a city swimming pool. It then filled with water, leaving a new lake 350 feet across.

Sinkholes occur when sand beneath the surface of the ground begins to erode and falls into underlying limestone cavities, causing the surface to collapse. Several factors may contribute to their formation, including drought, excessive water pumping, traffic or construction.

-- The Associated Press and the Orlando Sentinel contributed to this report.

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