Car falls into massive sinkhole in Philadelphia’s Port Richmond neighborhood, road closed for repairs
By Taleisha Newbill, Alexandra Simon, Siafa Lewis
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PHILADELPHIA (KYW) — A street in Philadelphia’s Port Richmond neighborhood is still closed after a large sinkhole opened in the road Tuesday afternoon.
Police reported the sinkhole opened on the 2700 block of Birch Street at 1:30 p.m. on Feb. 25. The road remains closed Wednesday morning between Salmon and Edgemont streets as emergency crews work to make the necessary repairs.
Images from Chopper 3 showed one car that fell into the sinkhole and another that was left teetering on the edge of the collapse. Both cars were removed by Wednesday morning.
Initially, about 30 properties near the sinkhole lost access to water after the Philadelphia Water Department shut down a 6-inch water main in the area. Overnight, the department said service was restored to all but one property. Impacted customers can contact 215-685-6300 for assistance.
Steve Williams told CBS News Philadelphia it was his wife’s silver sedan that fell into the sinkhole.
“Actually I was at work. I got a call, got a panic call from my wife that something happened on the block. I kinda left work early and when I got home, I saw that … typical sinkhole. Her car was in it,” Williams said.
“When I got here … Philly PD was here, they had already called PECO, they had already called the water department, they already called the gas company. So, they were working on it pretty quickly. They got here really fast,” he said. “And right now, there appears to be some type of water leak underground, some pipe maybe was running for an extended period of time. And there’s no gas leak from what they told us, they got a big crane, they’re going to remove my wife’s car out and then we’ll go from there.”
Jimmy Shelton’s aunt also lives on Birch Street. He said she was very upset when it initially happened.
“She’s good now, at first she was very upset, but she got over it,” he said. “Not that she got over it but she’s much better than she was at first.”
Despite the shock of what happened and the disturbing and surreal images, most are just happy the incident wasn’t worse.
“I was kind of concerned the house would fall down, but it’s only a car,” said Maggie Razzi, who lives on Birch Street. “It’s only two cars, it could’ve been like a person. Only cars, only the street, nothing like major.”
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