Florida sinkhole continues to grow

“You can almost envision a piece of Swiss cheese,” said Taylor Yarkosky, a sinkhole expert from Brooksville, Florida, while gesturing to the ground and the sky blue home where the earth opened in Seffner.

“Any house in Florida could be in that same situation.” A sinkhole near Orlando in 1981 grew to 400ft (122m) across and devoured five sports cars, most of two businesses, a three-bedroom house and the deep end of an Olympic-size swimming pool.

More than 500 sinkholes have been reported in Hillsborough County alone since the government started keeping track in 1954, according to the state’s environmental agency.

The latest sinkhole, estimated at 20ft (6m) across and 20ft (6m) deep, caused the home’s concrete floor to cave in around 11pm on Thursday as everyone in the Tampa-area house was turning in for the night. It gave way with a loud crash that sounded like a car hitting the house and brought Mr Bush’s brother running.

Rescue attempt

Jeremy Bush said he jumped into the hole but could not see his brother and had to be rescued himself by a sheriff’s deputy who reached out and pulled him to safety as the ground crumbled around him.

“The floor was still giving in and the dirt was still going down, but I didn’t care. I wanted to save my brother,” he said through tears yesterday. “But I just couldn’t do nothing.”

He added: “I could swear I heard him hollering my name to help him.” A dresser and the TV set had vanished down the hole, along with most of Mr Bush’s bed.

A sheriff’s deputy who was the first to respond to a frantic emergency call said that when he arrived he saw Jeremy Bush.

Deputy Douglas Duvall said he reached down as if he was “sticking his hand into the floor” to help Jeremy Bush. Mr Duvall said he did not see anyone else in the hole.

As he pulled Mr Bush out “everything was sinking”, Mr Duvall said.

Engineers said they may have to demolish the small house, even though from the outside there appeared to be nothing wrong with the four-bedroom, concrete-wall structure, built in 1974.

Jeremy Bush said someone visited the home a couple of months ago to check for sinkholes and other things, apparently for insurance purposes.

“He said there was nothing wrong with the house. Nothing. And a couple of months later, my brother dies. In a sinkhole,” he said.

PA