Growing sinkhole in neighborhood raises concerns

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    OMAHA, Nebraska (WOWT) — An Omaha neighborhood has been dealing with a deep sinkhole for a week now. It’s been a couple years in the making for it to finally hit its breaking point.

For weeks, neighbors on South 187th Street have been dealing with a six to eight foot sinkhole.

“We had this massive rainstorm a couple weeks ago, we came by to walk the dog and we notice a small foot by foot hole that went all the way down to the septic or sewer system there,” said neighbor Jennifer Collis.

It only became worse from there.

“Over the course of 24 hours, it just continued to erode and erode,” said Collis.

Although it wasn’t a sinkhole until a few weeks ago, it’s been a growing concern for neighbors for numerous years now, when the sinkhole started to be noticeable.

Someone in the neighborhood tried to fix the problem early on.

“At one point last year, our neighbor stuck a shovel down there about four feet and they put rock into it and kinda poured rock over last fall,” said Collis.

With the consistent drive through traffic in the neighborhood and people out and about, the sinkhole has made it a safety concern for others.

“I don’t want, you know, a six to eight feet hole in my yard and potentially have a kid fall in or a runner,” said Collis.

For the last week, Jennifer has been trying to contact the city, the mayor’s hotline, and more.

“We kept trying to call the SID and my neighbors, they’ve been calling the SID trying to get somebody to go on and work on this and it’s now gone almost three weeks. We just haven’t gotten results on getting this closed up,” said Collis.

With their area being a subdivision, it’s up to the Sanitary and Improvement District or SID to provide the maintenance but today, SID provided some hope.

“They finally got the territories marked and they’re waiting for OPPD to come take the power pole down.

Jennifer says they still don’t know the time frame of when they will take the power pole down and get to work on the rest of the sinkhole. She’s relieved they finally got some kind of answer.

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