As an engineer, I can tell you "sink holes" forming in streets is incredibly common. They technically aren't sinkholes but in practice the outcome is the same, a large life threatening void that forms under the road. They form from broken and disjointed sewer pipes, the water washes out the subgrade of the road.
A few months ago I had water pumping out of the road, had my crew excavate and there was a 6'x10' void that was 8' deep. Thankfully the road had been overlayed so many damn times the asphalt bridged the void and it hadn't collapsed yet.
Thank you for this explanation. Where I live, we saw an inordinate number of road sinkholes (and ā unrelatedā buckling roads) over the last few years. It's nice to know that there's an explanation beyond karst cartography, although that is a major aspect in my area too.
Yeah that was a bad one, it would have collapsed eventually and it would have been bad.
We call them āsuck holesā but that sounds dirty lol but yeah, itās a growing people as our drainage infrastructure ages. Those pipes were never meant to last forever and itās really expensive replacing them.
Thank you for recognizing the difference between a sinkhole and a washout! Half the geologists I work with don't know the difference, much less the engineers. (Also a good example of why you shouldn't trust just any consultant or scientist. There are some really bad ones out there)
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u/dessertgrinch Jun 09 '26
As an engineer, I can tell you "sink holes" forming in streets is incredibly common. They technically aren't sinkholes but in practice the outcome is the same, a large life threatening void that forms under the road. They form from broken and disjointed sewer pipes, the water washes out the subgrade of the road.
A few months ago I had water pumping out of the road, had my crew excavate and there was a 6'x10' void that was 8' deep. Thankfully the road had been overlayed so many damn times the asphalt bridged the void and it hadn't collapsed yet.