March 4, 2005
By DANA TREEN
The Times-Union

Photo: Susie and Red Roberts' family calls the growing hole that has swallowed tons of the couple's front yard, a driveway and several trees "Mimi's Sink." Thursday, the growing hole off County Road 252 in Lake City was threatening the front edge of their two-story house, defying the stopgap measures of geologists, state prisoners and 4,500 sandbags. (JON M. FLETCHER/The Times-Union)

Photo: Susie and Red Roberts' family calls the growing hole that has swallowed tons of the couple's front yard, a driveway and several trees "Mimi's Sink." Thursday, the growing hole off County Road 252 in Lake City was threatening the front edge of their two-story house, defying the stopgap measures of geologists, state prisoners and 4,500 sandbags. (JON M. FLETCHER/The Times-Union)

LAKE CITY -- On the third afternoon, Susie Roberts' freshly painted porch began a slow lean into the sinkhole, its foundation cracking and crumbling into the pit.

Mimi's Sink, a family name for the growing hole that had swallowed tons of front yard, a driveway, a magnolia and other trees at the home on Lake City's west end, was marching beneath the front edge of the two-story house, defying the stopgap measures of geologists, state prisoners and 4,500 sandbags.

"I just painted that front porch two weeks ago for spring, and hung that wreath on the door," said Roberts, pointing to the house from behind a protective fence. In an increasing, cold drizzle, Roberts and husband Red could do little more now than watch.

"The first four or five hours, you think there is something you can do," Red Roberts said. "After that you just sit and watch."

He said the couple's family named the sinkhole after a nickname the grandchildren called his wife.

By Thursday, the hole in the yard that the Robertses woke to at 5:30 Tuesday morning had made more than just a mark on their property. At one point a 40-foot magnolia tree collapsed into the hole. It bobbed once and just disappeared, said Bob Garbett, a volunteer firefighter.

Health officials said nine of 12 residential wells tested in the surrounding area had tested positive for E. coli, thought to have come from a 200-acre, swamp-like pond that abuts the Robertses' land. The pit was an estimated 225 feet long, 100 feet wide and bottomed out as far down as 75 feet in a slurry of earth and water.

Photo: The Lake City sinkhole was an estimated 225 feet long, 100 feet wide and bottomed out as far down as 75 feet. It swallowed a 40-foot tree and is threatening the home of Susie and Red Roberts. (JON M. FLETCHER/The Times-Union)

Shady Oak Mobile Home Park next door had been evacuated, but authorities were planning to allow those people back in, and a road in front of the property was to be reopened Thursday evening.

During the morning, 36 inmates from Columbia Correctional Institution finished trying to jam sandbags into the spot where Pueschel's Pond was draining into the hole. Water seeped around the dam but slowed the flow that had run as fast as 10 million gallons of water an hour, according to some estimates.

The water from Pueschel's Pond carried tainted surface water into the sinkhole and the Floridan aquifer, spreading in a plume that provides water to homeowners and others in this area where private wells are the usual source of potable water.

Health issues became the biggest concern, said Hugh Giebeig, administrator of the Columbia County Health Department.

"A lot of people have called that their water is discolored," he said.

The department expanded a localized boil-water notice from the immediate area to include those five miles south to southwest of the sinkhole.

Giebeig said it was unclear how far the contamination could spread.

Lake City is about as far inland as a person can get in Florida. Halfway between the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico, it sits at a split in topography separating a highland that sweeps into Georgia from a wet, low-lying region that stretches to the gulf. It is in that low area where acidic rains filter into the lime rock Floridan aquifer and over time erode larger and larger caverns in the rock 75 feet beneath clay and sand, said Fred Handy, a surface water specialist with the Florida Rural Water Association.

When the erosion becomes severe enough, eating even into the layers of clay, it all collapses to create what geologists term a cover collapse sinkhole.

Handy said the pond water was likely spreading beyond the local area.

"This is basically a big flush down the aquifer," he said. The Floridan aquifer supplies much of the state with its drinking water.

Throughout the day, the curious and the concerned drifted by.

Circuit Judge E. Vernon Douglas arrived and was allowed around the property behind the safety cordon.

"This could happen to any one of our homes," he said. "Any one of us could be in the same position but for the grace of God."

Hurricanes last year and steady rains are thought to have contributed to the pressures that hastened the erosion and created the sinkhole.

"There are a lot of interesting questions I see associated with this," Douglas said. "This is a community concern. Is it likely to reoccur?"

As rain battered on the tin-roof cookhouse beside the Roberts' house Thursday, wildlife artist Doyle Yancy and his wife watched.

"This is remarkable," he said. "Everyone around here is talking about it. They are wondering if this is going to be the first of many of them."

Gail Moore, owner of the Shady Oaks trailer park said residents of the 13 trailers had been given vouchers for hotel stays by the Red Cross but would be allowed back in Thursday night if they wanted to come home. She said it was the power of nature that struck her.

"I was kind of awed by the whole thing. Pretty awesome. Pretty terrible," said Moore, who said she had owned the trailer park for a year and through "four hurricanes and a sinkhole."

Engineers had determined Pinemount Highway that runs in front of the house was safe to drive on, and the pace of the sinkhole's growth remained slow. The Robertses first found a hole in their front yard on Susie Roberts' birthday then had to act quickly, throwing a few things together to get out.

"Then we got pictures of the grandkids, mementos, guns and deer heads," Red Roberts said, "It was her birthday. I guess she wanted a party."

Susie Roberts said they will live with family but will miss large family gatherings at the house where they lived for 15 years.

"To us it is a whole lot of memories so we'll just have to make memories somewhere else.

dana.treenjacksonville.com, (904) 359-4091

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