SEFFNER, Fla. (AP) — Engineers worked gingerly Saturday morning to
find out more about a slowly growing sinkhole that swallowed a Florida
man in his bedroom, believing the entire house could eventually succumb
to the unstable ground.
Jeff Bush, 37, was in his bedroom Thursday night when the
earth
opened and took him and everything else in his room. Five other people
were in the house but managed to escape unharmed. Bush's brother jumped
into the hole to try to help, but he had to be rescued himself by a
sheriff's deputy.
The family, which had evacuated Friday, will be allowed to go
inside for about a half-hour to gather belongings. The
family was outside, crying and organizing boxes.
It's unclear how large the sinkhole
is or whether it leads to other caverns and chasms throughout the
neighborhood. Experts say the underground of West Central Florida looks
similar to Swiss cheese, with the geography lending itself to sinkholes.
Experts
spent the previous day on the property, taking soil samples and running
various tests — while acknowledging that the entire lot where Bush lay
entombed was dangerous. No one was allowed in the home.
"I cannot
tell you why it has not collapsed yet," Bill Bracken, the owner of an
engineering company called to assess the sinkhole, said of the home. He
described the earth below as a "very large, very fluid mass."
"This
is not your typical sinkhole," said Hillsborough County administrator
Mike Merrill. "This is a chasm. For that reason, we're being very
deliberate."
Sinkholes
are so common in Florida that state law requires home insurers to
provide coverage against the danger. While some cars, homes and other
buildings have been devoured, it's extremely rare for them to swallow a
person.
Florida is highly prone to sinkholes because there are
caverns below ground of limestone, a porous rock that easily dissolves
in water.
A
sinkhole near Orlando grew to 400 feet across in 1981 and devoured five
sports cars, most of two businesses, a three-bedroom house and the deep
end of an Olympic-size swimming pool.
The sinkhole, estimated at 20 feet across and 20 feet
deep, caused the home's concrete floor to cave in around 11 p.m.
Thursday as everyone in the Tampa-area house was turning in for the
night. It gave way with a loud crash that sounded like a car hitting the
house and brought Bush's brother running.
Jeremy Bush said he
jumped into the hole but couldn't see his brother and had to be rescued
himself by a sheriff's deputy who reached out and pulled him to safety
as the ground crumbled around him.
"The floor was still giving in
and the dirt was still going down, but I didn't care. I wanted to save
my brother," Jeremy Bush said through tears Friday in a neighbor's yard.
"But I just couldn't do nothing."
Jeremy Bush said someone
came out to the home a couple of months ago to check for sinkholes and
other things, apparently for insurance purposes.
"He said there
was nothing wrong with the house. Nothing. And a couple of months later,
my brother dies. In a sinkhole," Bush said.
