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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:
No. But then I probably wouldn't build a house on land that required flood or hurricane insurance either.
Folks, do you not keep up with the insurance news? Just a few weeks ago it was voted in the legislature that, I believe it was Citizens Insurance, no longer covers Sinkholes. Go to Google and type in sinkhole insurance coverage news and check it out. Florida has long been plagued by sinkholes and especially in the middle part of the state. That is not to say it can't and doesn't happen throughout the state. These are certainly NOT new phenomena.
Just fill it with water and you have a free swimming pool.
Honey, your darn dog has been digging up the back yard again!
"Only God knows how they happen"...and geologists, scientists, surveyors...well, anyone with a fully-functional brain. LOL Its a mystery!!! ROFL
Some rebar and gunnite and you should have a nice sized pool.
Wouldn't be something if they found Jimmie Hoffa down there? Amelia Earhart? DB Cooper? Al Capone's REAL vault? Oh Geraldo we have a story for you!
Sinkholes are very common in Florida. We have had entire communities swallowed up by sinkholes in the Miami-Dade/Broward county line. While it may have something to do with the limestone at times, it could also be caused by building on top of a former Mount Trashmore. See article below, for example:
http://articles.cnn.com/1996-10-23/us/9610_23_sinkhole_1_hampshire-homes-construction-debris-dump-site?_s=PM:US
This hole was formed by a meteorite impact that is being covered up by mogul controlled media. Repeated impacts on Earth from a rain of rocks from space are being reported as "gas pipe blasts" "space junk" "earthquakes" "tsunamis" "sink holes" "terrorists explosions" etc. because rigged mogul media needs to keep sheeple asleep, unaware of the galactic cloud enshrouding our solar system and pummeling Earth with rocks. The public is kept unaware as the "elite" build space station safe havens and subteranean cities for the rich with slush funds siphoned off from the staged and arranged 2008 economy "meltdown" charade, when $50 trillion of global wealth was transferred to their plan. This reality is exposed at:
rockprophecy com
the most censored and suppressed website online.
I hope you're joking. If not, you're pretty damn retarded. The picture does not show a meteorite collision, it shows clear signs of a sinkhole.
I think you need to fix your foil hat; I can see parts falling off and they're gonna turn you into sheeple too if you don't attend to it.
Great, more Gator habitat!
A whole lake in florida emptied out when a huge sinkhole opened up. Boats, some floating docks, everything went down the hole in a huge whirlpool. And No, God didn't cause it, like one person said.
They do fracking in Florida?
But seriously, "Only God knows how they happen, but I'm just thankful that we're all OK"?
No, there are a lot of people around who know how this happens. They are called scientists.
And I agree. Sinkhole insurance? Those guys will
gamble overinsure anything.Geeze another Florida story. Somebody up there doesn't like Florida.
Sinkholes started in Florida when the high watertable disappeared about 25 to 30 years ago. Before they disappeared you had to wellpoint to put a swimming pool in
A sink hole ? In central Fl ? Around all those lakes? .....Hmmmmm.......I can't imagine..... -__-
Under the next sensible law passed, lets have you sign Florida Sink Hole Waver, or else the developer of the property needs to hire unemployed geologists to drill and discover what under there. Problem and Solution.
You sound like a community Organizer that I knew once.
The value could go up and this could be a new Lakefront home in a few days
I like Tacos
I knew that if I scrolled down far enough some idiot would find a way to make this about President Obama. I was encouraged early on when I found the idiot blaming illegal immigrants. I'm going to keep scrolling and look for the idiot who blames homosexuality, abortion or gun control.
Maybe Exxon was frack drilling under that residential neighborhood? Wouldn't put it past them.
Sure there's alot of oil in dat sand.
But if chromite prices go up that sand might look attractive. Point is coal,oil and gas companies would drill/mine Mt. Rushmore if there was somthing underneath worth taking and they could get away with it. In Florida, The Everglades would look like the Houston oilfields without sombody there to stop them.
All hail god money!
Oh sorry... Thought this was an article about out of control government spending...
Put in a pool!
While residing in Columbia, Maryland we noticed all these sink holes that were beginning to develope . . . people later explained that the area we were leaving in USED to be FULL of trees . . . when the land got sold to build the apartments, duplexs, townhouses & houses ALL those trees got bulldozed down & burried under additional soil . . . so over time those trees begin to rot/mulch/decompose thus sinkholes . . . I am kinda wondering if this too plays a factor in the sinkhole(s)
maybe it's one of those Freddie-Fanny fiascos and it's way upside down in value...or they are in way over their head. Could be a blessing in disguise....
Is any oil company fracking nearby. If I was the homeowner I would demand that the state find me a valid and true reason why the heck this happened near his house.