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Sinkholes
Topic Started: Feb 21 2014, 08:30 PM (2,525 Views)
yass
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City gives Queens man a violation for giant sinkhole in his lawn

Julio Colon thought he was doing the right thing when he alerted the city of the gaping 20-foot deep hole in his Flushing lawn. He said it “blew up” in his face when inspectors gave him a violation for failing to maintain his property.


Friday, May 2, 2014, 5:05 PM

Posted Image
Colon measured the hole's depth to 20 feet. He says it opened up
mysteriously after Wednesday night's heavy rains.


Here comes that sinking feeling.

A Queens man is livid after inspectors flagged him for a giant sinkhole that opened under his lawn after Wednesday’s rainstorms, calling the violation he was given unfair.

When he noticed the 20-foot deep fissure Thursday morning, Julio Colon says the first thing he did was call the city.

“I tried to do the right thing and it blew up in my face,” said Colon, a contractor by trade, who said that instead of helping, Buildings Department pencil pushers wrote him a violation. “I could have had this full already.”

Inspectors cited his “failure to maintain,” the property even though they noted the ditch was most likely caused by the remnants of an ancient cesspool.

“That dirt hasn’t seen air in 100 years,” said Colon, who bought the Flushing house in 1999.

Posted Image
Inspectors cited his “failure to maintain,” the property even though
they noted the ditch was most likely caused by the remnants of an
ancient cesspool.


Colon said he would have filled the ditch himself Thursday, but now he has to obtain a permit and hire an engineer, leaving the unsafe orifice gaping in the meantime.

“That’s what the city does,” said Colon, who estimates the violation’s requirements will cost him a several thousand dollars. “Instead of rewarding you for doing the right thing, they punish you.”

Reps from the city pointed out that there is no fine directly associated with the violation, and that the sinkhole was on Colon’s property — not the city’s.

“Property owners are responsible for maintaining their property in a safe and lawful manner at all times,” said Kelly Magee, a spokeswoman for the DOB.

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/queens/city-queens-man-violation-giant-sinkhole-article-1.1777488
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yass
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Baltimore "Sinkhole" Actually a Landslide

An expert explains how the two geological events are different.

Posted Image
One lane of East 26th Street in Baltimore collapsed and slid down an embankment after heavy rain on April 30, 2014.

Published May 2, 2014

Quote:
 
The main difference between a sinkhole and a landslide, he says, "is that sinkholes occur over voids hidden from view beneath a flat or gently rolling surface—they generally don't occur on slopes. With a landslide, you don't need a void at all, just a slope or hillside. They typically occur along scarps—cliff faces or other kinds of sediment that are at a steep angle."


Read more http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/05/140502-baltimore-sinkhole-landslide-geology-science/
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yass
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Florida sinkhole: Massive hole between two homes is plugged (+video)

Quote:
 
Workers spent Saturday dumping 15 truckloads of grout into the hole and "hadn't put a dent in it," Battalion Chief Pete Carpenter of The Villages Fire Rescue told the Sun Sentinel.

"It's just continuing to grow," he said.

But by Sunday, workers had successfully filled the hole with 40 truckloads of sand and cement and were expected to finish the landscaping work on Monday.


http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2014/0421/Florida-sinkhole-Massive-hole-between-two-homes-is-plugged-video


Giant sinkhole in central Florida is back, threatening to destroy retirees’ homes, eat them whole

Quote:
 
"No one will ever know a sinkhole was there," Meredith Tucker, one of the contractors, told the Orlando Sentinel, but three days later, the ground collapsed again.

The latest hole in the ground was discovered by a person on an early morning walk, reported The Village News. The hole is now about 65 feet wide and about 70 feet deep.


http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/sinkhole-central-florida-baaaaaaack-article-1.1766397
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yass
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Two Sinkholes Open In Tallahassee Family's Front Yard

May 06, 2014

Tallahassee, FL - A Tallahassee family says they woke up to their dogs barking,, and found their grill in a small sinkhole in their front yard.

"It's completely weird for us because even though we've lived in Florida for 14 years, we've never heard about that. Never. So for me it was a crazy thing that happened", says resident Erika Rojas.

Rojas says her family has lived in the home in front of Munson lake for two years. She says they noticed the ground was getting softer the last couple of weeks, but also says they could have never imagined they would have two sinkholes right in their front yard.

Resident Omar Perez has built a construction out of a bed frame that he says will come crashing down if the sinkhole continues to get any larger and come towards their home. He says he got the idea from living in Cuba, where they sometimes will construct things in front of the front door to alert them of intruders. He also says they have to-go back packs ready. They have water and food and they'll go to a hotel tonight, if necessary, and then make sure they can get their kids to school tomorrow.

"I've never seen anything like this before in my life. I just tried to put some noise in the night to wake us up because we won't realize what is there", says Perez.

According to the Public Works Department, because the sinkhole is on private property, the homeowner is responsible for filling the hole. Rojas says the landlord has come by and said he will fill it with concrete, but in the mean time, the family is left building homemade barriers to keep their children and pets out of the holes.

Mrs. Rojas says her family was told today that a sinkhole actually opened in the road right in front of their home shortly before they moved in. She says if their landlord had told them that, they never would have moved there in the first place.

Read more + video

http://www.wctv.tv/news/headlines/Sinkholes-Open-In-Leon-County-258005531.html
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epona
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Florida...hmm...I wonder if this increase in sinkhole numbers has anything to do with that BP oilspill thing where they were trying to mess with the fragile sedimentary/shale shelf under the Mississippi Valley area and cause that to collapse, instead is happening in smaller other ways in the gulf area states. Remember how the geologists were freaked that the whole gulf floor could collapse? So wonder if instead other smaller areas are collapsing and this is the side affects. 70 feet is pretty deep and is not an ancient cesspool. That's about 7 stories deep. I know Florida has a limestone base, but could it have been "crackled" like a fried marble during the BP incident? And then the droughts and then heavy rain changes could stress out the underground land structures. Think frakking on a huge scale (which is essentially what they did to the whole Gulf crust).

Maybe they did more damage in unanticipated regions.
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