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Sinkhole yawns with car at bottom
By SUZANNAH GONZALES View related 10 News video:
Officials estimated that the hole had grown to 35 feet in circumference and just over 40 feet deep. It's still moving, said Ruth "Rusty" Harry, emergency management coordinator for the Citrus County Sheriff's Office. Inside the Marathon gas station at U.S. 41 and County Road 39, a straight crack had formed on the floor near the cash register counter. Outside, the pavement had cracked in spots. With the property cordoned off with yellow tape and drivers slowing to peek at the hole, geologists, contractors and engineers worked Wednesday to determine how to pull out the car and rectify the problem. "We've got to stop the hole from growing," Harry said. Harry explained that the hole may be filled in with debris or concrete. Three thousand gallons of gasoline had been removed from four underground tanks by 6 a.m. Wednesday, eliminating the possibility of fire or a gas spill, according to the county's public safety director, Charles Poliseno. Afterward, fire officials from the Citrus Springs and DeRosa volunteer departments vacated the scene. Poliseno said the canopy over the two gas pumps still could collapse. The area still is not completely stable, officials said. The sinkhole, which some described as unusually large for the county, is the result of a process that has been happening for thousands of years, said Paul Pilny, a soil scientist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Natural Resources Conservation Service. "If you peel back the surface, you are going to find holes all over the county," Pilny said. He said the underground looks like a natural sponge. Acids in rain eat away at rock, forming a crack, and vibrations from traffic above can accelerate the process, Pilny explained. When water starts to enter the crack, the crack gets larger and a cavity starts to form, he said. Rainwater accumulates in the cavity, creating a lot of water weight in the soils above, Pilny said.
Suzanne Bynes of Beverly Hills didn't know any of this Tuesday evening. She just thought she may have hit a pot hole. Bynes had just finished putting $9.30 worth of gas in her car about 5 p.m. Tuesday, and drove forward about 25 feet. She was on her way to KFC in Dunnellon with her 18-year-old son, Carmine, in the passenger seat and brown dachshund, Tiger, with them up front. The car jolted. They felt whiplash. Then Bynes, 44, tried twice to gun the car in reverse. It wouldn't move. Knowing something was wrong, Carmine jumped out of the car and yelled: "Mom, get out of the car right now." Suzanne Bynes got her wallet and got out. Then they remembered the dog. Suzanne Bynes opened the driver's side door about a foot, with the door scraping the ground. It was just enough space for her to grab Tiger's leash and pull her out. Bynes instinctively closed the door "and let it go," she said. She remembers that the front end of the car was tilting down. Carmine got behind the car and tried pulling on the bumper, hoping to pull the car out of the hole. Bystanders told him: "Leave it. Let it go. Let it go." -- Suzannah Gonzales can be reached at 860-7312 or sgonzales@sptimes.com.
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