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WESH
A giant sinkhole opend up just feet from a house in Windermere, Fla.
A Florida family got a rude awakening -- shortly followed by evacuation orders -- on Thursday morning when they discovered a gaping sinkhole just feet from their home.
"There's a hole in my backyard," Windermere, Fla., resident Lou Lambrose told the 911 operator just after 7 a.m. on Thursday when he first saw the hole, according to NBC station WESH.com. "How do you explain that?"
Lambrose said his wife, Denise, was getting their children ready for school when she noticed something odd behind the house.
"I ran downstairs with her and came outside with her and ... the grass was popping because it was falling into the ground," he said of the sinkhole, which is within three feet of the home, according to WESH.com. "So we immediately ran upstairs and got all of the kids out of the house."
"The building department did come out and they did do their assessment and deem the building unsafe," Genevieve Latham of Orange County Fire and Rescue said, reported WESH. "It is upsetting; this is their home. This is where they live and it's unsettling for them."
The Lambroses' pets were also evacuated safely, according to local media.
Four trees have been swallowed so far by the giant backyard hole, WFTV.com reported. A fifth is on the edge.
The Lambroses rent the home, and the homeowner has sinkhole insurance, WESH said.
More about the sinkhole on WESH.com
No other neighbors have been forced to evacuate, but the family next door isn't taking chances.
"It's way too close to the house," Bryan Denis, who lives next door with his two sons, told BayNews9.com. "It's actually part of the yard now. I don't want my kids anywhere near it."
Windermere, Fla., located about 15 miles outside of Orlando, has suffered from Central Florida's monthslong drought, contributing to the sinkhole. The water table below the ground's surface dried out, resulting in everything on top of it dropping as well, experts told BayNews9.
A geologist surveyed the land Thursday afternoon to help decide what to do next, local reports said. By Friday, the hole had grown to 100 feet by 100 feet, larger than an NBA basketball court, said BayNews9.
It's not known when the Lambroses will be able to move back into their home. Lambrose said one of his kids was in the backyard on Wednesday evening, hours before the ground opened up, so all he cares about is that they are safe.
"My son was out there on the hammock," he said. "That's all I care about, is that my kids are OK and nobody got hurt. Completely scary. My brain has a hard time comprehending things like this. Only God knows how they happen, but I'm just thankful that we're all OK."
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Leave a Comment:
Why would you build a house in a location where they sell sinkhole insurance?
Well the guy did rent it out. Probably made a profit on it in the end.
denver bill 2...
Sinkholes can occur anywhere. Palmyra PA for example. A major warehouse distribution center for a food products company was built and one day they came out to find about 20 53ft trailers falling into one. I'm sure you can find them in Colorado also.
Occassionally, they are inadvertently man made. Water pipes break and wash out the underlying ground until nothing supports the road or whatever else is above it and it collapses on itself, of course bringing roads, houses and cars with it.
Check with your insurance agent. I'm sure they'll sell you a policy to cover that as well as anything else you can think of.
Nah! Those are just the prairie dog holes.
Well Denver Bill... they do it all the time. And it's also called "ground subsidence" insurance. No big deal. Most times they are smaller.
When we lived in Illinois we had to have subsidence insurance for a 70 year old house. They told us it was due to the numerous mom and pop coal mining operations that left the ground unstable.
Denver~ Probably the same reason they build houses on flood plains (Midwest), on hillsides and cliffs (California and elsewhere), tsunami zones (West Coastline), around volcanoes (Italy, Phillipines, South American, North America)...."...but it probably won't happen to ME...).
Only 'God' knows why sinkholes open up he says??? What a f*cking idiot.........
It must be the "Great Mystery". Cave people with cars - nuf said.
XD is no doubt right, but denver bill sure made me laugh.
Why would you buy a home where they sell flood insurance? Denver Bill you are and idiot probably from lack of O2 at high altitudes.
GoUSA
HS - Is that where my mom and pop went every day? They told me they worked at the post office. Ya know we never got our mail on time but we were always warn in the winter!
I had it on good authority, that god would begin the end of all ends in florida. not with a hurricane, but with a sinkhole. Enjoy!
Yes, you can find them here in Colorado too, though around here they are usually referred to as "undocumented mine shafts."
Anyone else have that sick curiosity to stand by the edge and poke the hole to see how far down it goes?
You can add sinkhole coverage to any homeowner's policy in FL & this owner is probably renting the house out until the market turns around because he's upside down on his mortgage. Lots of homeowners are doing this instead of selling via short sale or being foreclosed on. In addition, I used live in a neighborhood in Deland where I heard a rumor that an entire house, with the cars still in the garage, went down in a sinkhole. That home was then covered up and built on top of and then that 2nd home started to go down too. While I was living there, they were having concrete pumped into the ground under the house to keep it from falling in any further. Don't know if the rumor is true, but weird!!!
If I was the home owner, I would just fill the sink hole with concentrated sand, and have it compacted. That would reinforce the hole from sinking at a fast rate, and give you time to reinforce the footings of the home.
The property developer probably got the land cheap because of the underlying condition. Built up the houses quickly, got his money and moved on before disaster could catch up to him. Florida has been at the forefront of land swindles and other sordid land deals for over a hundred years.
Get rid of the 1 Million Illegals here in Florida and we wouldn't use so much water....Send them all to D.C and let the politicians deal with them....
Sinkholes were a common occurrance where I lived in South Florida, considering most of the land was technically 'below sea-level', developers had to build up the sites with fill. Hence, the abundance of sinkhole insurance.
" Only God knows how they happen..."
And anyone who read the article, or geologists, etc....
well it's probably cheaper than, falling rock, or mud slide, or flood, or all the insurance you probably pay for living in a cave in the side of a mountain, bill. you might want check out your own paper work, you've probably got it too.
I don't want sinkhole insurance I want "it" happens insurance. Whatever "it" is.
From what I recently discovered trying to obtain sink hole insurance in florida is that you can not always get it anymore. I was told by an insurance agent that a law was passed recently that no longer requires insurance companies to offer sink hole coverage in Florida and that where I live in Pinellas county (outside of Tampa) even though it is still being offered by the state plan citizens they can also deny you coverage if there is any record of a sink hole in the area. The agent said he hasn't seen anyone approved for the coverage since the new law went into effect late last year. It is mind boggling to me since this is like saying in the west you can not obtain earthquake insurance or north will no longer cover damage for snow. It has changed my mind about buying property in Florida.
What's the big deal? pull out the hose and make a pool.
Just in time for summer!!
My insurance agent recommended NOT buying sink hole insurance when we bought our house a year ago. I guess it has to do with the general geology of the area. We do have flood insurance though.
We had one here in a neighborhood that was built partially over one of my great-grandpa's old cow pastures. Neither the developer nor anyone still alive in our family knew that back in the '30's some cattle sheds had been pulled down, the scrap piled in a bowl in the ground, and then buried over. Fast forward 75 years, all that old metal and wood has rusted or rotted, shifted, and compressed underground.. and you got some big sinkholes in people's yards.
Windermere? Windermere? I seem to recall something else in Windermere that got sunk...I think it was some golfer...
A drought in Florida. Hmmm. A drought in the Southwest and most of the south as well. Sucking out ground water does indeed create a sinkhole, wonder if anyone will pay attention to what is shaping up to becoming a serious drought issue in this country? Nah, that would be intelligent.
well they are prob say "that's just great! first housing market crash now physical crash...."
Limestone and/or dolomite are the two most common carbonate rocks in Florida. Add in caves, underground drainage systems, springs, and disappearing streams, then add in erosional processes coupled with slightly acidic rain and you have a setting for sinkholes.
I grew up in St. Pete and it was fairly common to hear of sinkholes.
In the movie "The Lovely Bones" The towns sinkhole is where the killer hid the murdered girl's body. They never found her...after a while it turned into a stinkhole :(
Everything is a mystery till you research it thoroughly. Instead of putting in so much money and effort to find more efficient and stealthy ways to destroy countries and kill people, I wish it was spent on studying the earth to find out when and where certain disasters strikr.
I grew up in Orlando, FL and sinkholes are common everywhere in the state. As you fly in for your vacation and are "amazed" at all the little lakes remember they all started as sinkholes. It's just a peril of the state like others have fires or quakes.
The most famous one was in the late 80's that swallowed up an exotic car dealership. They had live footage of a Porsche 911 whale tail sliding down 40 feet into the hole never seen again......Burp!!
exactly
Why does everyone in this article speak like a 7th grader who is not particularly strong in english? Maybe B grades at best?
Too many useless words 2 examples
Example 1: "I ran downstairs with her and came outside with her"... Really?
Example 2: "The building department did come out and they did do their assessment. . ." Again, really?
Completely stupid words that don't need to be said:
Example 1: "It's way too close to the house"... as if it being farther away would make it better.
Example 2: "I don't want my kids anywhere near it"... again, why would you let your kids near a smaller one, why did you have to say this?
and finally
"My brain has a hard time comprehending things like this." No, friggin, way... really? It does? I'm so shocked!
Oh Brandon, leave them alone. They obviously didn't even get a chance to get their morning coffee before being waylaid by the reporters. Also, given the quality of the writing on this website, I question whether the quotations written were exactly as stated. The need for speed in reporting has often resulted in the reduction in the quality of the written product.
I agree with everything except for the "its way too close to the house" comment. That was said by the neighbor and actually makes sense.
BrightBrandon,
Thank you for your grate elucidisacium uf summin we'se all needin to nose.
Hope you feel better now.
A little arrogant, are you?
Thank you Brandon! Both spoken and written English grammar is in the toilet.
like brandon U R so totally uncool, you know like OMG why R U such a dorkus???, for real and no lie.like the Cocoa waves are bitchin this weekend and we are goin to scarf on some tasty waves........knarly.
While I did a double take on his quote thinking I read wrong, in the end I didn't care what he said. If I found a large hole in my yard I would be incoherent too. "dam dis big ass hole!'
Dude, ligthen up and get over yourself.
Brandon -
maybe because they are 7th graders who are not particularly strong in English. If you are looking for proper English, you are definitely looking in the wrong place. The MSNBC "reporters" were getting coffees for everyone yesterday and they are "reporters" (at least I hope so because if they are college graduates, be afraid, be very afraid.)
Hey everybody, check out the big brain on Brandon!
Brandon: How do you spell I-d-i-o-t??
Don't listen to them Brandon. It needed to be said!
Grammar and syntax are dying a slow painful death!
who cares get the point
Putting others down seams to make some feel superior. Aint that right Brandon.
Actually, staying on topic. This is about a Sinkhole. Shouldn't the fools name be Brandon Sinking?
What a donkey! HeeHaw! HeeHaw!
I have never heard of sinkhole insurance. Is there no way to test for that so you know for sure?
Geologic surveys can be done, but they're costly and can change over time predicated on rain or lack thereof.
Certain counties are prone to them. FL sits on a low water table and actually supports the land above. When they pump too much water to irrigate or there is a drought you see many sinkholes as the support below is gone.
This happens everyday in FL and i can't understand why it is on national news. If FiFi the poodle jumped in with the baby then I would get it............
Insurance companies are always on the ready to sell whatever you may fear and whatever could possibly be in the realm of possibility. If you use it though, your insurance will not be renewed and you will have to pay triple to some other bank's insurance company.
Guess I never thought it was so common that insurance was available for it.
If you need to make a claim because your house was swallowed by a sinkhole, I don't think that you need to worry about renewing.
TFNJ
Yes, find the fattest person you can find and have them jump up and down and up and down and up and down,
Naw, just kidding.
Actually, a little research will reveal what lies under just about any land anywhere in the US (or the world for that matter). But Florida is one huge limestone deposit so they are common.
As far as insurance, you can probably get metorite insurance if you can pay for it!
If you knew it would eliminate the need for insurance. I can see it now, report comes back yes there is a 97.6 % chance of a sinkhole swallowing your home. So you build, buy, rent anyway? Only in Fla. Who would sell you insurance?
Christian Missionary: do you have any CLUE how much that quantity of sand would cost?
Mo, It's mandatory that insurance companies offer the sinkhole coverage but depending on where you live you get no lotion so to speak when you get the premium charge........
The bedrock for florida is limestone, look up Karst topography.
I live on the Big Island in Hawaii, when a house lot is cleared they use a big bulldozer D-8 or 9 with big prongs on the back that stick into the ground several feet and rip the ground up all over the lot to find any surface lava tubes. If a house built over a lava tube causes the lava tube to collapse and the house sinks, and breaks apart, some lava tubes are very large!!
@iwonder Florida is a big limestone producer, some is scraped off the surface in limestone pits and sold. Some is at great depth. The limestone has nothing to do with sinkholes, it's ALL about the water table. I lived there 30 years and seen it over and over........
Must be the dang gophers.
I live in N Fl and it is a dry, dry, dusty place. Before moving here, I had always heard that it was a wet state, with swamps, etc. But it is just the opposite. Very little rain, water tables incredibly low, rivers at record low levels, wildfires a plenty, and no relief in sight. This place is ever so slowly becoming a desert. Also I was not aware of Sinkhole Insurance, but it might be a good idea to check into it.
you DO know that there is a pretty big swamp in the southern part of the state don't you? There are MAJOR differences between northern and southern FL... just as there are major differences between northern and southern California.
How about you get on I-75 or I-95 (depending on what coast you are living on) and come down to this little stop in the road called the Everglades National Park, and see if you can revise that statement Evanstar. N. Florida looks no different than Georgia, IMO, about a half hour north of Orlando.
" Only God knows how they happen ..."
Wrong. We know how and why they happen. There's even a Wikipedia entry about them! Wow!
"... The mechanisms of formation involve natural processes of erosion[4] or gradual removal of slightly soluble bedrock (such as limestone) by percolating water, the collapse of a cave roof, or a lowering of the water table. Sinkholes often form through the process of suffosion. Thus, for example, groundwater may dissolve the carbonate cement holding the sandstone particles together and then carry away the lax particles, gradually forming a void. ..."
Yeah, this means that the aquifers are collapsing because of the overpopulation situation - water being pumped out at alarming rates to take care of golf courses and suburban lawns - is causing them to cave in. The natural cycle of rain water retention has been forever disrupted by the draining of the "River of Grass," and the destruction of millions of acres of natural marsh and swamp which collect rainwater which filters down to replenish the aquifers.
It's not always a matter of pumping too much water out, it's the acidity of water being pumped into or dumped onto the ground. If it's the right pH to dissolve the minerals in the ground, you'll get a nice cave after a while.
I love that they asked the 911 operator how they would explain the giant hole in their backyard, as if the operator is an engineer. um, okay, well, it's kind of like this.... --seriously though, this does happen all the time, my in-laws house had a large sink hole under it near Tampa about 15 years ago, they're all over Florida.
Sounds like they should've asked God for an explanation.
I was surprised that they had to ask the operator about it at all. Maybe they're brand new to Florida? Anyone who lived there for any length of time would instantly recognize what it was.
Not just sink hole insurance. Why build a house on a land bridge between two lakes, Lake Down and Lake Butler, that want to become one lake? Oh because we can get insurance. I remember something from when I was a tot, build your house on a rock. Wonder why that is? duh!
Throw some politicians and bureaucrats in the sinkhole so it won't come after the rest of us!
I misread it and thought it said 4 teens already were lost in the hole and 5th was on it's way. I was hoping it would keep going.
Politicians and bureaucrats eh? I guess I was misled regarding the virgin thing then.
But on the bright side - if it will just stop about where it is now, the owner simply pours some concrete, puts in a diving board and the property value goes waaaaay up because of the added in-ground pool!
Erm... well, no... Actually, scientists know why they happen. In fact, if you read this article about your house, you can know, too: Building a house on unstable land with a high water table combined with drought. Doesn't take a god to figure it out. Just an education.
Glad that your kids and pets are okay, though. Hopefully, you'll be able to save the furniture, too.
Bummer, dude.
Does that mean the expression bothers you or just that they were oblivious of the science,or both?
Boy, that's a big Buzzkill!
Self-preservation,check.
With all the problems in this country, why the hell is this news?
You're reading it so guess what there's interest.
because people like me and you read it and waste time in this discussion stuff.
"The Lambroses' pets were also evacuated safely, according to local media."
This statement doesn't mean what they intended it to mean.
High colonic for fluffy?
LMAO
LMAO! thank you!
It should be easy to install a backyard in ground pool now. Half the work has been done.
Many communities in the northeast are required to have subsidence insurance for thier mortgage. There are countlees unmapped abandoned coal mine shafts that could open up at any time. It is an inexpensive but important rider on the policy.
Far out!! I'm glad here in Virginia you can't dig a hole in the yard without hitting rock. "Sink hole insurance" wow what a thing to have to consider.
There are parts of Virginia that are undermined with coal mines. Ask Peabody Coal!
They used to blame them on acid ran. The acid would dissolve the lime stone structure of the ground causing it to collapse.
It's George Bush's fault, I'm sure.
"This is where they live and it's unsettling for them."
Unintentional pun?
They had a sinking feeling about it when they moved in.
It would make it difficult to stand your ground.
LOL HAHAHA Bassai Made me laugh
In Pennsylvania it's call mine subsidence.
ok... first call is 911 but hope they have called a moving company now, even if belongings have to be stored (pods are good)....too bad it is probably a slab foundation, if a raised foundation the owner could have moved it to another lot/site.
Nothing in south/central Florida is built on a raised foundation - wood rot and termites, ya know. Slab is the way to go . . . . .
Without the sinkholes and the water that comes up from some of them, Florida would be a big sandbar with dunes and no shallow groundwater. THe water comes from the Atlanta area and over the millinia has eroded huge caverns beneath the surface all the way to Key West. Look at a map of FL, the big lakes are on lines. These lines are failure planes in the limestone that is known as the FLoridan Aquifer. Sometime, centuries from now, the whole state will just drop into one big cavern and disappear beneath the waves.
Hmmm....what will happen with all those electoral votes? Must be Bush's fault.
It wasn't funny the first time, and it's not funny now. Knock it off, Mike.
Is there a way to speed up that process?
The only hole large enough is swallow this home is OBAMA'S MOUTH!! This sick, twisted liar has to go in NOVEMBER!!
Nice, make an article about a natural phenomenon into a political rant.
You know SOMEBODY always has to Miami. I think they win awards for doing it, you know, like people who trolled used to get for the amount of people they could irritate into responding to them, or virus writers get for how many computers they infect. I believe it has to be that, I can't fathom anybody but a demented Rush Limbaugh being so all consumed by politics 24/7, over every article they read!
Hey Hot. Is that a picture or you? I may be in love. It could be just lust though.