Sinkholes, nature’s version of the Morlocks, are fascinating and scary things. They appear out of nowhere, swallowing up homes and vehicles like a muddy repossession agent.
A massive sinkhole currently devouring a major downtown street in Ottawa, Canada’s capital, caused commuter chaos, ruptured a water and gas main, flooded a partly constructed underground LRT station, and took the life of an innocent Dodge Grand Caravan.
The model might have been spared by Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, but this vehicle wasn’t. Ottawa was last in the sinkhole news in 2012, when a man (and his Hyundai Accent) was gobbled up by a malevolent freeway.
Let this be a lesson to all drivers: the Earth is hungry.
See video of the meal after the break.
The van on Rideau Street is now under water #ottnews #sinkhole pic.twitter.com/l6Gk5WjM2s
— CTV Ottawa (@ctvottawa) June 8, 2016
#rideaucentre #Ottawa @CTV_Television @ctvottawa @CBCOttawa @metroottawa @ottawacity pic.twitter.com/zPpEWApnqX
— Mitch (@mitchmcewen_) June 8, 2016
So long as my 20″ SRT wheels never get hurt…
What ever snacktruck series review
Ha I actually read that in Archer’s voice.
Me too!
Buuuuuuurrrrrrrp.
That one’s just a puppy. In the mid 90’s a sinkhole caused by a leaking water main near here devoured the front third of a 4 story office building. It had to be put down with bull dozers.
For those of you who own homes in sinkhole prone areas (limestone rock), look into a sink hole rider on your home owner’s policy. I only pay about $25 a year extra for replacement coverage.
I often wonder how the property insurers estimate accurately the replacement cost of a home. There aren’t any comparables around me really. So they use sqft, style, and ZIP code mainly?
Cory,
Not sure, but I would guess they use some sort of construction cost index adjusted for building type and size. My policy lists the replacement value for all covered events. It is more than I could sell the house for. It doesn’t include the value of the land.
Yeah, my replacement cost is about 1.8x the value of the house.
1.8X the value of the dwelling or your property value?
Value of dwelling.
My coverage is 1.75X now. Plus $50K for sewer back up. Wish I had $50K in coverage two years ago…
I didn’t pick the amount, IIRC. As I was filling out the paperwork online, the figure was just there. I don’t feel like it could cost -that- much to just rebuild my house, but I dunno.
Certain bits wouldn’t be the same, like plaster walls, and having 80 year old wood floors.
That makes sense. I can’t replace the 70 year old craftsmanship in my house either.
My house in Northern Michigan on the other hand…lol. I think its a 1970s kit house. It’s worth less that 1/3 of the property. The real value is in the waterfront property. I think the four watercraft, dock, hoists, shed, garage, and tools we have are worth more than the actual house.
All your pavements are belong to hole!
All your Cadillacz are belong to 4.9.
Mine’s currently sorta broken, by the way.
An ode to the phenomenon was recorded some years ago:
Sinkhole, Mississippi,
Sinkhole, Mississi-i-i-ippi,
Sinkhole, Mississippi,
Somebody’s gonna get some sink-hole.
Hey Ottawa TTAC’ers…..avoid Rideau/Sussex, I was downtown shortly after this happened, it’s a nightmare!
Actually that advice could apply just about any time :)
Would have liked to have checked this earlier
Hmmmm. Reminds me I’ve got to check into earthquake insurance now that I’ve moved several hundred miles closer to the New Madrid fault.
Sinkholes? Everyday occurence.
In the modest South St. Louis neighborhood which I grew up in, they’d strike on occasion. One day as a kid, I came home from school and a portion of the “gangway” (I think that’s what the sidewalk thing in between houses is called) was engulfed into the Earth below.
A couple of years later, a whole f*cking house was swallowed up two blocks south from us. On our street. (It was an 80K house at best, so no big loss, gang.)
Just make a run for it if you hear the ground shake. I guess.
I thought sinkholes were the guys who take forever to wash their hands in a crowded men’s room.
Damn. My parents house (the whole area, very large) sits on top of a humongous Salt Dome. They’re storing Natural Gas in it at a facility not far away. Nothing to worry about, they say.
Remind me that when I’m sitting in their kitchen and I can feel a school bus or other heavy truck through the house’s concrete slab foundation. The whole house jiggles and dishes chatter sometimes.
Then there is the Army instalment near by that practices with live bombs that shake the house (100 miles roughly away) like thunder.
Its enough to wear on my nerves, lol. It feels like the earth is very thin and is vibrating excessively, especially eerie when a heavy truck goes by.
Now I live in Florida and I was told it has more sinkholes than anywhere. I read similar is true about Kentucky (the famous Corvette Museum sinkhole as evidence).
If I go to Washington, its land/mudslide territory, on top of earthquakes. The house I stay in when I’m there is perched on the side of a embankment. The distance between the side of the house and edge has shrunk from large enough to drive through with a very small vehicle, ATV, lawn tractor, etc in the 1990s into so tiny that you have to walk sideways to get between the house and the edge as of a couple of years ago. Its a disaster waiting to happen.
This is 20 +/- miles from the devastating Oso slide a few years back. They couldn’t access some of their owned property north of the slide area (a cabin, land) for months.
Got nowhere to run to, baby! -Martha and the Vandellas I believe.
I was born in an area in New Zealand where this happened a lot. Holes would appear suddenly as limestone caves under the ground collapsed . pretty interesting for a bunch of kids when part of the sports feild suddenly dropped one day.
Never mind Ottawa sinkholes.. Canada’s Navy is sunk. All four of Canada’s 2nd hand British Leyland submarines are non- operational. They came without Leycare…
The other NORTH Korea manages better.
BL made Submarines ?! .
.
there’s a nasty joke in there…..
.
-Nate
That’s where the model name for the Rover S(ubmarine) D(isaster) 1 came from.