On Sunday night residents in Chicago's South Side awoke in the middle of the night to a horrifying sound. One resident told NBC Chicago that she was startled out of her sleep to the sound of the street collapsing and when she went outside to check she was staring at a small sinkhole.
Residents said the sinkhole started off small but grew rapidly overnight. By Monday afternoon it was 14-feet-deep, 20-feet-by-80-feet wide, had swallowed a tree and was still growing, the Christian Post reports.
According to the Chicago Sun-Times, a water main break caused the hole in the ground near South Wentworth Avenue and 124th Street.
"It's scary," said Deloris Alexander, whose home sits right next to the hole. "It's really scary. The first thing that came to my mind is that everything [in the front yard] would sink right in."
Crews have blocked off the road near the hole as they try and repair the damage. Residents affected by the sinkhole had their water temporarily shut off but it was restored shortly before 11 p.m. on Monday even though authorities are urging residents to boil their water before drinking it.
Water Department Deputy Commissioner Bill Bresnahan told NBC Chicago he believes the sinkhole was the result of water leaking into a nearby house. Because of the damage, some homes in the area had up to two feet of water flood their basements.
Bresnahan said the crews are doing everything they can to fix the road but repairs could take a couple days. Earlier this year in April, another sinkhole hit Chicago's South Side swallowing up three cars and injuring one person. The sinkhole was attributed to a night of heavy rain storms and rainfall but Chicago's Water Department Commissioner Thomas Powers reportedly told the Tribune "not to blame the rain as much as the city's nearly hundred-year-old sewer system," the Huffington Post reports.
