A sinkhole stopped a black Honda on eastbound Wendover Ave just east of Hill Street early this morning. The passengers got out, but the car kept sinking. It was extracted at about 8:30 AM. The hole was caused by a broken water main; city workers were still looking for the break as the car emerged from the ground beneath one of Greensboro's busiest roads (top photo by nice City worker who volunteered to walk my camera past the police tape).

UPDATE: Here's the City's detour map; City says eastbound Wendover will  be closed for several days: "Damage to Wendover Avenue is being assessed but could extend as far east as the bridge over Buffalo Creek. The 12 inch water main was apparently pumping water under the roadway for some time."

No small deal, it's AKA US 220, and the main street of Metro Guilford.

Comments

[Jeffrey Sykes]

I counted 23 city workers watching one man pull the car out of the sink hole. Efficiency in government at work.

[Danny Wright]

Judging from the fact that the car is upside down, it must have been partly in the other lane than the one that collapsed and then rolled once the left side of the car went too low. I wonder what would have happened in terms of how quickly the car (or perhaps a heavier one, like an SUV) would have sunk had it stopped in the lane directly above the leak -- or if somehow the collapse had occurred when a vehicle was going 45 mph (or faster) over it.

[Danny Wright]

. . . or perhaps closer to the median on the other side of the hole.

[Ed Cone]

Sykes, it was far from a one-man job. Raising the car took more than a crane operator, someone had to secure the straps to the car. Water dept. people were there looking for the break, road people considering the street damage, etc. Workers stopped to watch the car come out of the ground, but there was much to be done on the scene.

[Lex]

A liberal blogger named Rick Perlstein has been harping on sinkholes nationwide as an illustration of how American infrastructure has been neglected. Personally, in this particular case I have to wonder whether sewage leakage played some role, given the problem that area has had there -- that is, I wonder whether ongoing sewage leaks weakened ground under the water pipe, thus causing the break. But that's just a guess, and lord knows I ain't no civil engineer.

Anyway, Perlstein's blog is at commonsense.ourfuture.org if you want to search for potentially relevant posts.

[Don Moore]

This is NOT the first time that a sink hole has occurred here or near here. From the photographs, I think there was a sink hole on the west side of Hill Street a few years earlier.