A look underground reveals potential problems for neighbors of a house that dropped 2 feet Wednesday morning.
By LEON M. TUCKER
Published July 18, 2003
[Times photo: Carrie Pratt]
Frank Sasso of R.C. Kannan & Associates performs an underground survey Thursday on Indigo Drive in Dunedin where a woman's house suddenly sank earlier this week.
CLEARWATER - The sinkhole that lowered the floor of an elderly woman's Greenbriar home by 2 feet this week did not start there, officials said Thursday.
In fact, they don't know what caused the earth to be sucked from under 83-year-old Helen Illig's house.
"The sinkhole is not right under the house," said Ramanuja "R.C." Kannan, engineer and president of R.C. Kannan & Associates of Largo. "It's washing out from some other place."
What's perhaps most interesting is that Kannan said the subterranean makeup on Illig's property was no different from the seven other houses on her side of Indigo Drive and two of of those seven could have similar problems.
Because Illig's home was uninsured - her insurance company dropped her in February - the county stepped in to offer assistance and assess the damage to her home. Officials called in Kannan, who said he agreed to waive his firm's $2,400 fee for the high-tech survey because of Illig's situation.
But after Thursday assessment, the county stepped back.
"We looked at those results and it has been determined that no county infrastructure is being affected by this ground subsidence - that's a concern for the county," said Len Ciecieznski, spokesman for Pinellas County. "As far as the private property is concerned, private property is private property."
Though no damage was done to county property, Kannan's survey found that there were problems with erosion and "very loose soil underneath" the homes at 2384 and 2378 Indigo Drive.
Residents at the homes did not answer telephone calls Thursday seeking comments.
"They should call their insurance company and investigate further," Kannan said.
Other neighbors said they were worried.
"I was thinking we were gong to be pretty safe but after this it makes me wonder what's going on," said Pam McIntosh, whose house at 2350 Indigo Drive is next door to Illig. "I'm definitely concerned now."
Illig said she was awakened early Wednesday morning when she heard a loud cracking noise and thought it was someone breaking in.
When she went to her living room, she found it was sloping into the ground.
Illig, meanwhile, has had numerous offers of help from different people and organizations but has "politely declined," according to officials with the Tampa Bay chapter of the American Red Cross.
"Our volunteers comforted her, but she declined our assistance," said Niki Paksoy, a spokeswoman for Red Cross. "We left information with her that if she changed her mind and needed assistance to call us."
Like the day before, passers-by continued gathering outside the house Thursday afternoon to peruse the damage - namely the lopsided house, the inch-wide, stair step cracks and gaps that ran along all sides of the 855-square-foot house.
Thursday morning, Kannan and surveyor Frank Sasso assembled a device that looked like a contraption out of the 1984 film Ghostbusters.
After a quick test, Sasso began dragging the roughly 40-pound instrument along the ground.
Past bird baths, through overgrown grass and past wandering peacocks, Sasso dragged 40 feet of cable hooked to an electronic box wrapped around his waist.
"It's a lot of setup work and, really, just running the lines," he said, his shirt and shorts drenched in sweat from the process. "Running the lines is the easy part - you just go to be the mule and pull it along."
Back and forth, eight times and for about 150 yards the 30-year-old marched along while the probes emitted electric signals into the ground. The signals are transmitted into the waist box as information about subterranean activity some 20 feet below the row of eight homes along Indigo Drive.
By early afternoon Kannan had the results, which gave no comfort to McIntosh.
"I came home from work thinking everything was going to be fine," she added. "Our only plan is to remain here and start thinking about an alternate course."
