How about contacting the media? The TV stations might be interested.
From: krf...@aol.com
Date: Thu, 26 Aug 2010 16:26:49 -0400
Subject: Re: [UC] Sinkhole is open and getting bigger on 44th between Spruce &
Pine
To: mlam...@aol.com; UnivCity@list.purple.com
In a message dated 8/26/2010 10:56:59 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
mlam...@aol.com writes:
Hi, Al, here's a question: are you calling 311 to report it and/or
follow up on it? Remember, they assign the report a number & you can
call them back to follow up on it, and they hold the departments
accountable if the departments don't do anything. This seems pretty
urgent, and it seems that 311 could be helpful.
Thanks.
I started by calling 311, who transferred me to the water department emergency
line, who had me on hold for almost 10 minutes before they took the info.
After over an hour, nobody showed, so one of my crew called 911 to get a cop,
thinking they could at least put up a barricade where the pavement was covering
a cave with no support. The cops came, called the Streets Dept, and left (no
barricade... just a few traffic cones my guys put up).
I called John Fenton, late in the day. He made some calls, which came through
to the extent that he did get their attention (their short attention span
attention) and today we had multiple inspectors from the water and streets
depts, who made some measurements and tests then said it was a big job that
maybe the Highway Dept should handle, and they also left.
More of the pavement is caving in.
They said there was an old sewer line onto 44th St from my house... and there's
certainly a pipe down there. But my sewer line goes onto Spruce Street -- I
have no idea where the one they saw comes from, but not my house. There was
once a convent taking up most of the block between 44th & 43rd, Spruce and
Pine, so maybe it was theirs. Of course, that was 94 years ago. At any rate, no
sewer line could cause this much erosion -- it has to be a bad storm drain.
In the meantime, it's still a danger spot and I'm concerned that a car or
possibly a heavy truck is going to crash another hole through the pavement
above the cave and get swallowed -- causing damage at least and possibly injury
(or worse). There doesn't seem to be any water down there right now so a
vehicle crashing through won't cause anyone to drown... but I could easily see
a situation where someone would be trapped inside and unable to open their
doors or have enough space to get out of a window.
Also, when the inspectors were here, they found that the erosion had opened a
tunnel between the place where the pavement is open now, and the sink hole
about 25 feet away, in the middle of the street closer to Spruce, that they
fixed about two weeks ago. So, when they found the first sink hole, they didn't
bother checking to see what had caused it or they would have found the tunnel
from that end.
The whole thing may become a real nightmare and disaster. It has me very
worried.
Al Krigman
