# Sinkholes in your area



## aaabbbccc (Mar 8, 2009)

I live in Florida , as most of you know , we have a lot of sinkholes , some parts of Florida have it very bad , where I live in Winter park , Florida , we do not have them as bad as some parts but back in 1981 , there was a huge sinkhole about 1 miles away that destroyed a bunch of stores , power lines , trees , and some houses . I know other parts of the country and the world has them as well . 
I was wondering if anyone live in a high risk sinkhole area and what do local , state or county officials do about them. Have you ever heard of sinkhole insurance ? We have it here but it is so expensive that most people do not have them . What makes it even worst if you live an earthquake zone / sinkhole area , that is very bad combination . At least we have no earthquakes here in Florida as far as I know . 
this should be an interesting topic


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## poshbakerloo (Jan 16, 2007)

I don't know if it counts as a sink hole but there are places in England built over mining areas which have collapsed into the ground.


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## WeimieLvr (May 26, 2008)

There was a really huge one in Atlanta several years ago outside of a Marriott Hotel that killed 2 people...








http://sinkholes.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/atlanta-georgia-june-1993.jpg

This one was more recent, swallowing a car in suburban Atlanta...


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## aaabbbccc (Mar 8, 2009)

wow , that is insane , rainstorms caused it ?


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## WeimieLvr (May 26, 2008)

aaabbbccc said:


> wow , that is insane , rainstorms caused it ?


Yes...2+ inches of rain in about 30 minutes.


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## Svartmetall (Aug 5, 2007)

In urban areas it's often poor drainage that causes the problem - cracked pipes or outdated water systems can lead to sinkhole formation.


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## woutero (Jan 14, 2008)

Very rare here in The Netherlands, but it happened in the past year in the Southern city of Heerlen, where a sink hole appeared in the parking garage underneath a shopping center. It was evicted and the shopping center is now partly torn-down.









The cause of this is subject of discussion. 
The shopping center is built on top of old coal mines, but these are supposedly properly secured before being abandoned.
The soil below the shopping center also has a thick layer of chalky/limestone soil, where infiltration of (acid) water can result in Karst formation (including sink holes).

I am not sure whether these things are covered in insurance. If it were caused by the old mine pits, the National Government is responsible (as per old mining laws) and will have to pay the damage. If the cause is 'natural' I am not sure whether or not it is covered by insurance.


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## Ocean Railroader (Jun 18, 2011)

We have a network of Coalmines under the county next to us and they build hundreds of new Mc Mansions over them. These coal mines are the Chesterfield Coal mines one of the oldest in the US and some going down to over 700 feet down in the 1850's. During their time they killed hundreds of miners though a sires of explosions that ended in the 1880's when a massive explosion killed over 50 miners one day and sealed them up. The mines flooded and it's not uncommon to see sink holes at this local park for the mines filled with water. It is also not uncommon to have people dig in their back yards and find 100 foot deep pits or shafts or have underground flooded mine tunnels running all all under these neighborhoods with this $400,000 dollar houses under them. It also became a big zoning battle where they still wanted to put even more house and things over top of them. In fact there is a American Family fitness gym that was built over a spot that on the site plans had five coal mine shafts in it.


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## friedemann (Jun 29, 2006)

Now THIS is a sinkhole, isn't it. It was somewhere in South America, don't remember the country.


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## fastboyRD (Jun 8, 2010)

_Wooow..  Good, but Guatemala is not part of South America._


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## friedemann (Jun 29, 2006)

Ah, it was in Guatemala? Muy peligroso país.


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## Chrissib (Feb 9, 2008)

There was one in the south of Thuringia (Germany) in 2010:


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## Dimethyltryptamine (Aug 22, 2009)

Holy crap lol. them things look scary!

We sometimes get them at beaches, where the swallow up tons of sand.


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## Jonesy55 (Jul 30, 2004)

There are lots of old mine workings around the UK but they are all registered on a database that is searched by your legal team when buying a property so you can tell if there is any danger of your house falling into an old mineshaft.

I've never seen a sinkhole like that but there are some I'm sure.


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## ajknee (Nov 2, 2006)

On July 22, 2010 Milwaukee got *8 inches of rain in 2 hours*

The rain cause a few sinkholes to open up, but this one swallowed a Cadillac:










If you want to see some intense flash flooding from the storm, check out this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHBgiBld3M8&feature=fvwrel


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