In the middle of Lancaster Avenue, 200 feet from the intersection of Lancaster and Euclid the neighbors have a sinking feeling about their road.
A sink hole has formed, again, about a week ago and it swallowed a two-foot diameter chunk of asphalt. An informal neighborhood discussion brewed up when five residents got together on the porch down the street.
“It annoys the [expletive deleted] out of me,” Sam Ryan said.
Neighbors upset
The five guys have lived on the block for about two years and drive by the hole every day. Since they moved in, they have seen the hole appear twice.
Sinkholes, are different from potholes. Potholes form when pavement crumbles from the excessive heating and cooling. A Sinkhole is a natural geologic event that forms in Karst topographies.
“A Karst topography is where you have limestone deposits,” Paul Fitzgerald, SU Geologist said. “Limestone, or CaCO3, is soluble in water. So where you have water percolating down, dissolving away the limestone, you get sinkholes.”
When a sinkhole collapses it can take entire city blocks with it, like in Guatemala in 2007.
A recurring problem
“They filled it with gravel once before,” Ryan said. “But I don’t know what’s going on with it but I know it’s been there for a while.”
A sinkhole can rarely be filled with dirt or gravel as a means of repair. Often underground streams or caverns remove the sediment – which is the original reason for collapse.
Neighbors aren’t worried about the hole expanding as much as people’s safety. DPW has outlines the area with a few blockades and diverted traffic but that hasn’t solved the problem. The guys shared stories about how many times they have watched close calls.
“I saw a car go flying by and almost hit a kid on a bike,” Ryan said.
Syracuse DPW didn’t immediately return a call.
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