Current Event #3 (Man in Florida gets swallowed by sinkhole)
Last week Thursday (February 28, 2013), a man was swallowed up by a sinkhole near Tampa Florida. The Hillsborough County, on the south side of Florida, is known as the “sinkhole ally”. A county administrator told everyone it wasn’t a normal sinkhole because it was so big. Usually sinkholes don’t cause this type of tragedy. Sinkholes are somewhat common in Florida because the ground is made up of limestone and other carbonate rock. Acidic groundwater ‘eats up’ the rock, and it collapses when there is too much weight above it. In this case, the house above was too heavy for the limestone to support, so it swallowed up a lot of the house. Jeff Bush, age 36, was sleeping when his bedroom started collapsing into the sinkhole. Everyone woke up because it was so loud. Jeff screamed, and his brother, Jeremy, came running into his room. Everything was gone including his brother and his brother’s dresser, T.V., and bed. Jeremy shoveled away some rubble as he was trying to get his brother out. The floor was going into the sinkhole, so the sherif’s deputy pulled him to safety. Nearby, neighbors were evacuated for safety reasons. There were five people injured in this tragedy, including Jeremy Bush and a two year old. On Sunday and Monday workers carefully took down the one story home, trying to save some of the family’s belongings. They couldn’t find Jeff Bush’s body, because the sinkhole was 20 feet wide, and 30 to 50 feet deep. It would be to dangerous to keep looking. They tried to stabilize the hole with gravel, and then later recommended raising the house because it could collapse into the sinkhole at any time. Not only did the family lose their brother, but they also lost a lot of their possessions and memories. Jeremy Bush says “It’s not just I lost my brother. There are so many memories in this house, my wife and her brother and the whole family. Every holiday, we gathered at this house. Her grandmother passed away. All the stuff to remember her by is in this house, and we’re losing it all. You can’t replace that. You can’t replace a life being gone.”
It would be really hard to be the family who is going through this. It would be so unexpected, and unusual to be swallowed by a sinkhole. As Jeremy Bush states, all their possessions and memories were in the house. It would be hard to lose almost everything you have, especially a sibling. The neighbors next door are probably worried and wondering what might happen to their home. If the sinkhole caves in at any time, it might damage their house and property around it. I would imagine some of them would consider moving, but it would be hard to sell their home because no one is going to want to live near the location of this tragedy. I think scientists should come up with a way to detect whether the water in the ground is eating away the limestone. With that information, they may be able to prevent this type of tragedy.
Sites:
http://www.cnn.com/2013/03/04/us/florida-sinkhole/index.html?hpt=us_c2
http://www.cnn.com/2013/03/01/us/florida-sinkhole
March 8th, 2013 at 6:23 pm
Well written and presented. I’m sure scientists are studying this phenomenon and how they can detect it. It would be interesting to work on a prevention plan.