Read the story here:
A colossal sinkhole that opened up overnight in August 2012 in the rural Louisiana town of Assumption Parish has continued to expand at a staggering rate, devouring with it land and trees as documented in a new video that was uploaded on Tuesday.Does anyone know or, if so, will they say how much more the sinkhole will continue to expand?
The three-minute YouTube video was posted to an account run by the Assumption Parish Police Jury. The video shows about a dozen trees on the outside of a berm in the sinkhole suddenly swallowed in less than a minute. Six seconds into the video, the trees slowly begin to sink. At 41 seconds, their tops are no longer visible above the bubbling water.
The Assumption Parish Office of Emergency Preparedness has said that the sinkhole doesn't pose a danger to other homes in the area.I wonder. If I lived in one of the homes in the area, I doubt I'd be as confidant as the Assumption Parish official. Not that I mean to imply that the parish leaders are hiding information, for I think they do the best they can with what they know. Still, I worry about what they don't know.
UPDATE: An article in Mother Jones details the history of the sinkhole from the beginning to the situation in the area of the collapse in early August.
I suspect it depends on how big the cavern(s) are beneath for a max size and then there is the pollution.
ReplyDeleteAdmittedly with federal government sequestration and cutbacks before that I doubt the US Geological Survey has much money to research it and from the sound of it Jindal is unlikely to use state money to pay serious researchers. The insurance companies have a vested interest; however, they don't have the government clout to force various companies to cough up information or the infrastructure to sponsor research.
Erp, somewhere, and I don't remember where, I read something about the possibility that the collapse could spread to nearby caverns. I don't know whether that is true or not.
Delete