They don't happen often in South Tampa, but when they do, you'll soon be dealing with lawyers and insurance companies.
By RON MATUS
Published January 16, 2004
[Times photo: Thomas Goethe]
A hole at Kay McRae's home on Sandpiper Road opened up two years ago where the gravel is now.
SOUTH TAMPA - Kay McRae's lessons in Florida geology began with the bunny hole that wasn't.
Two years ago, the Beach Park resident noticed a bowling ball-sized hole in her side yard and figured a wild rabbit was responsible. Over and over, she stuffed the hole with dirt, rock, yard trimmings - even crumbled dry wall.
But nothing worked.
"The next day, there's a hole again," said McRae, 47, an artist and legal assistant. "I'm like, "Bunny's been here."'
Turns out, bunny wasn't to blame.
The earth was.
Workers pumped 31 truckloads of cement-like grout beneath McRae's home last month - enough, she jokes, to build a bomb shelter. McRae blames a sinkhole, though some experts say other natural forces could be the culprit.
In any case, she's not alone.
South Tampa may not be as prone to sinkholes and shifting earth as Pasco, Hernando or north Hillsborough counties, but even here, geology happens. And when it does, homeowners can be left wrestling with insurance companies over repair bills that often top $100,000.
"Sometimes, I want to close my eyes when I come out here," said Suwachee Reynolds, noting the cracks in the side of her house in Gandy/Sun Bay South.
Reynolds and her husband, Richard Martin, a Marine Corps staff sergeant at MacDill Air Force Base, are suing their insurance company, which claims the damage is not sinkhole related and, therefore, not covered by their policy. An expert hired by the couple says a sinkhole caused the damage.
Ultimately, a jury may decide.
Nobody seems to know how many homes have been damaged from dirt-related calamities in South Tampa.
There is no statewide database that tracks the extent and location of such damage, despite a demand for the information from consumers, said Tony Gilboy, a geologist and sinkhole expert at the Southwest Florida Water Management District in Brooksville.
The district gets about 50 calls a week on sinkholes. Few come from South Tampa.
Geologically speaking, South Tampa may be relatively blessed.
Here, the underground limestone is closer to the surface, so the dirt isn't as deep on top, said Mark Stewart, a University of South Florida geology professor. When holes form in the limestone, there is less sediment to fill in the cavities.
"In South Tampa, I have never seen a large hole in the ground," Stewart said. "I've never seen a collapsed sinkhole."
That's not to say South Tampa homeowners are immune.
It doesn't take much soil to shift beneath a house to cause foundations to crack, Stewart said. And what South Tampa lacks in sinkholes, it may make up for in pockets of clay that shrink or swell, depending on weather conditions. If the clay shrinks, it can cause sediments near it to move; if it swells, buildings can buckle.
Jay Silver is banking on sinkhole damage in South Tampa.
The owner of Innovative Settlement Solutions suspected there was enough geological activity in the area to warrant posting yard signs along West Shore Boulevard and other South Tampa thoroughfares that say, "SINKHOLE? TOP FAST $ OFFER $." Silver's company buys sinkhole-damaged houses, then fixes and sells them.
Even though other areas have more of these homes, South Tampa houses "go for more and they go quicker" after they are repaired, Silver said.
Sinkholes can usually be dealt with by filling them with grout or by driving giant steel pins through the house into more stable rock. Repair costs typically run into the tens of thousands of dollars, but for big houses on big sinkholes, six-figure bills are not uncommon.
Since his signs went up four months ago, Silver has met with five homeowners, including one in the Gandy/Sun Bay South neighborhood who has agreed to sell.
Reynolds and Martin are hoping for a legal remedy.
The couple bought their Harold Street home in 1990 and moved away in 1995, when Martin was transferred to another military base. They returned last year to find cracks in the walls and a tilting back porch.
The back yard, once flat, they said, now slopes.
"It used to be even with everybody else," Reynolds said, pointing to her neighbors' yard past rows of Chinese broccoli she planted.
A geologist hired by the couple's insurance company concluded the damage was not sinkhole related, said the couple's Hyde Park attorney, K.C. Williams III. But Williams said the geologist did not do the proper tests.
Officials with the company, First Protective Insurance, near Orlando, did not return a call for comment.
Sinkhole experts say the law is homeowner friendly.
Insurance companies must eliminate sinkhole activity as a possible factor in house damage, not just find other likely causes. "That's very difficult," said Williams, who handles dozens of sinkhole cases each year and has the Web site www.sinkholelawyer.com
Stewart, the USF professor, said it's not surprising to find geologists who disagree about what's happening underground. Even with ground-penetrating radar and other tools of the trade, interpretations of the problem can vary.
"It's a very inexact science," he said. "The subsurface is a difficult place."
And many things can cause damage: Sometimes, shoddy construction is to blame. Sometimes, roots can rot, or other organic materials can break down, leaving a void.
In the Carver City neighborhood near WestShore Plaza, several homes have cracks consistent with geological problems. One is damaged so badly, Silver refused to buy it - even at a bargain rate of $30,000.
Neighborhood activist Kennedy Watson isn't surprised. Parts of the area were built on old city landfills that are settling, he said.
A mile away in Beach Park, McRae can finally rest easier.
Before the grouters came, the rabbit hole had grown to several feet and nibbled at bricks on the edge of a walkway. Cracks appeared in the pool tiles and driveway.
One day, McRae was yanking down vines on the side of her house when she thought the ground was giving away beneath her.
"I couldn't see it moving," she said. But "I could feel it moving."
McRae eventually began negotiations with her insurance company, State Farm - negotiations that just happened to coincide with a divorce from her husband.
Ultimately, McRae said, State Farm agreed she had a sinkhole and now plans to pay for the grout work. But the situation tangled up her divorce and drew doubters, including her own divorce attorney.
Now, at least, the mysterious bunny hole is gone, and McRae doesn't have to worry about the house.
After more than 30 loads of grout, she said, "it's literally rock-solid."
Sinkholes are depressions or holes in the land surface that occur throughout west-central Florida. They can be shallow or deep, small or large, but all are a result of the underlying limestone dissolving. Lack of rainfall, lowered water levels, or excessive rainfall in a short period of time are all possible contributors to sinkhole development.
Warning signs of possible sinkhole
- Previously buried parts of fence posts, foundations and trees become exposed because of sinking ground.
- Slumping, sagging or slanting fence posts, trees or other objects.
- Doors and windows that fail to close properly. Cracks in walls, floors, pavement and ground surface.
- Small ponds of rainfall forming where water has not collected before.
- Wilting of small, circular areas of vegetation because the moisture that normally supports vegetation in the area is draining into a developing sinkhole.
- Muddy water in nearby wells during early stages of sinkhole development.
