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Man Goes Missing in Florida…When Bedroom Falls Into Sinkhole

Mar. 1, 2013 12:23pm Liz Klimas

SEFFNER, Fla. (TheBlaze/AP) — A man was missing early Friday after a large sinkhole opened under the bedroom of a house near Tampa and his brother says the man screamed for help before he disappeared.

The 36-year-old man’s brother told rescue crews he heard a loud crash around 11 p.m. Thursday, then heard his brother screaming for help.

Florida Man in Bed Falls Into Sinkhole With Bedroom

An engineer surveys in front of a home where sinkhole opened up on Friday, March 1, 2013, in Seffner, Fla. The sinkhole is not visible from the outside of the house. (Photo: AP/Chris O’Meara)

“When he got there, there was no bedroom left,” Hillsborough County Fire Rescue spokeswoman Jessica Damico said. “There was no furniture. All he saw was a piece of the mattress sticking up.”

The brother called 911 and frantically tried to help his brother. An arriving deputy pulled the brother from the still-collapsing house.

There’s been no contact with the man since then and neighbors on both sides of the Seffner home have been evacuated.

Here is aerial footage of authorities surveying the perimeter of the house:

“We put engineering equipment into the sinkhole and didn’t see anything compatible with life,” Damico said. But Damico would not say that the man is presumed dead.

Damico said that at the surface, she estimates the sinkhole is about 30 feet across but officials say the sinkhole spreads to about 100 feet across below the surface.

“The entire house is on the sinkhole,” Damico said.

(Image: Southwest Florida Water Management District)

Engineers arrived at the scene later in the morning and began working to get measurements of how wide and deep the sinkhole is. From the outside, there were no cracks or visible signs of damage to the home. The front door was open, but taped off.

A man screamed for help and disappeared as a large sinkhole opened under the bedroom of the house, his brother said Friday. The brother told rescue crews he heard a loud crash near midnight Thursday, then heard his brother screaming. The brother called police and frantically tried to help. An arriving deputy pulled him from the still-collapsing house. There’s been no contact with the man since then, and neighbors on both sides of the home have been evacuated. (Photo: AP/Chris O’Meara)

Janell Wheeler told the Tampa Bay Times she was inside the house with four other adults, a child and two dogs when the sinkhole opened.

“It sounded like a car hit my house,” she said.

It was dark. She remembered screams and one of her nephews rushing to rescue his brother, trapped in the debris.

Wheeler’s house was condemned. The rest of the family went to a hotel but she stayed behind with her dog, sleeping in her car.

“I just want my nephew,” she said through tears.

This regarding the still developing incident says the missing man is presumed dead:

As for sinkholes themselves, the U.S. Geological Survey describes them as common in areas where the rock below the land surface is dissolved by ground water:

As the rock dissolves, spaces and caverns develop underground. Sinkholes are dramatic because the land usually stays intact for a while until the underground spaces just get too big. If there is not enough support for the land above the spaces then a sudden collapse of the land surface can occur. These collapses can be small, as this picture shows, or they can be huge and can occur where a house or road is on top.

Example of a sinkhole. (Photo: Southwest Florida Water Management District)

This map shows the different types of rocks in different areas around the country that can be prone being dissolved by ground water and thus could create sinkholes. (Image: USGS)

The Tampa Bay Times recently completed a series on sinkholes in Florida, showing hundreds living in “Florida’s sinkhole alley,” which included Hernando, Pasco, Pinellas and Hillsborough counties. The Jan. 4, 2013, article by the Times focused on insurance for sinkholes and issues stemming from homeowners collecting funds but not using them for repairs.

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Comments (36)

thekriplins13
Posted on March 4, 2013 at 10:22am
“And the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed them up, and their houses, and all the men that appertained unto Korah, and all their goods. They, and all that appertained to them, went down alive into the pit, and the earth closed upon them: and they perished from among the congregation. And all Israel that were round about them fled at the cry of them: for they said, Lest the earth swallow us up also. And there came out a fire from the LORD, and consumed the two hundred and fifty men that offered incense.” (Numbers 16:32-35

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LameLiberals
Posted on March 3, 2013 at 6:51am
The brother who jumped into the hole to try to save his brother said “someone came to his home a couple of months ago to check for sinkholes and other issues, apparently for insurance purposes, but found nothing wrong. State law requires home insurers to provide coverage against sinkholes.” See below article.

I hope the family SUES THE HELL out of the company which inspected the property for sinkholes and said it was safe. NOTE: make sure any property inspector of any type HAS INSURANCE so if he screws up and you buy a dud home or in this case an inspector said the home was safe SPECIFICALLY from sink holes – he has insurance to sue. I think the family got the recent sink hole inspections because other articles stated there was a pond somewhat farther from the back of their back yard that “disappeared” – definitely a sink hole sign.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2287240/Florida-Sinkhole-Rescuers-end-search-man-swallowed-100ft-sinkhole-brother-tells-insurers-checked-risk-collpase-just-weeks-tragedy.html

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Marsh311
Posted on March 2, 2013 at 11:52am
I can’t believe some of the comments I am reading. Obviously no one understands what Glenn Beck & the Blaze want to accomplish. Some of most of you need to watch the Third Great Awakening. Such negative & selfish comments most of you need to think before you speak why don’t you think of that person in the sink hole as you Wife,Husband,son,daughter,aunt,uncle. Most of you should be ashamed of your posts, if not your whats wrong with America your the down fall of all that is wrong with America. This man works 2 jobs to support his family now he has nothing he lost his home he lost his brother. This is the time for Support for community. Most of you will amount to nothing with yourselves & your community. You hide behind your comments making the from your Smart phones or your comments, The new telephone tough guys strong with your words behind the comfort & protection of your phone or computer but if really confronted face to face you wouldn’t say a word in fear, fear of someone calling you out for the cowards you are. I don’t know this man I don’t know his pain but I saw his story on CNN & couldn’t imagine the helplessness of being pulled out of I hole trying to help your brother Only to be told it’s on safe & to watch helplessly as no one NO ONE helps to safe your brother. Same on you shame on your posts. GOD BLESS THIS MAN & HIS FAMILY IN THERE DARKEST TIME OF NEED. Hopefully there is a strong community around this Man & HIs family.

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paulwbrown
Posted on March 2, 2013 at 11:08am
Add your comments

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- paulwbrown
  Posted on March 2, 2013 at 12:03pm
  My original comment went into some sinkhole, I guess. I had asked where does the “goes missing” come from in the caption? Why not just “missing” or even “is missing?”
  
  Report this comment
cosmic dogma
Posted on March 1, 2013 at 10:30pm
If you are in a Karst region, can you use ground penetrating radar to examine the subsoil area? How deep would the radar penetrate? Anyone ?

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- Obama Been Lauding
  Posted on March 2, 2013 at 4:56am
  Anonymous sources told Harry Reid that it is Bush’s fault!
  
  Report this comment
Verceofreason
Posted on March 1, 2013 at 8:18pm
Has Pat Robertson blamed satan yet?

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LeadNotFollow
Posted on March 1, 2013 at 5:01pm
What a horrible thing to happen to a loved one.
May God comfort this family.

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watashbuddyfriend
Posted on March 1, 2013 at 3:41pm
The Florida droughts over the past few years, and even over many years has resulted in the sinkholes. It can happen in any state.

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- LameLiberals
  Posted on March 3, 2013 at 6:42am
  Drought and over pumping of underground water by the exploding population and farmers.
  
  Report this comment
flatbroke
Posted on March 1, 2013 at 3:14pm
OMG the entire state that i live in MO could be a giant sink hole. but i will not move, its very sad the guy lost his brother.

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momrules
Posted on March 1, 2013 at 1:50pm
These sinkhole scare the everliving daylights out of me. Have any of you been following the one in Bayou Corne Louisana? No one can explain it. Yet.

As far as this poor man, it doesn’t look good.

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jackact
Posted on March 1, 2013 at 1:33pm
All of Florida is built on a sand bar and eventually it will be returned to the ocean depths which is going to displace an awful lot of pissed off senior citizens, from NY, who vote democrat….
:)

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- watashbuddyfriend
  Posted on March 1, 2013 at 3:37pm
  You, Jackact, and we never know when the calling is coming! Alway best to have taken the Right Road Choice.
  
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The-Monk
Posted on March 1, 2013 at 12:57pm
A couple of years ago we had a bad freeze so the Strawberry farmers started spraying the strawberries with water. They spraying so much water that it reduced the aquifer levels. A sinkhole appeared at a local elementary school and I-4 buckled. The strawberries were saved but the freeze caused all of them to ripen at the same time. With that happening, there was so many strawberries on the market the price fell so low it was not cost effective to pick them. So they let them rot in the fields.

The next year they used 3 helicopters to keep an air flow over the strawberries to keep them from freezing. The helicopters, in the dark, crashed into each other.

Sinkholes are natural here in Florida but sometimes they are caused by man.

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- biohazard23
  Posted on March 1, 2013 at 1:33pm
  Too bad a sinkhole hasn’t opened up yet to take Charlie Crist, Kevin White, Kevin Beckner, Bob Buckhorn, and Alan Grayson straight to…
  
  Report this comment
- Zipit
  Posted on March 1, 2013 at 1:44pm
  Just the first, in the long expected list of occurrences due to “sequestration”! Congressional republicans to receive blame!
  
  Report this comment
- biohazard23
  Posted on March 1, 2013 at 1:51pm
  Zip, so it wasn’t the sky that was falling, it was the ground, right? Looks like Chicken Little-in-Chief
  screwed up again.
  
  Report this comment
- objectivetruth
  Posted on March 1, 2013 at 4:18pm
  @biohazard
  Why didn’t you mention the one person we would all like to see swallowed up?Obama
  
  Report this comment
DZ-015
Posted on March 1, 2013 at 12:49pm
There was video of a sinkhole swallowing a commercial building in China recently. Such sinkholes occur in a limestone Karst environment in which water below the surface dissolves the rock, forming limestone caverns like Carlsbad in NM. Florida is almost entirely formed of limestone, as are extensive areas in Europe, Asia, and Oceania. Coral reefs worldwide are composed of limestone, thus the Blue Holes found in the Bahamas and Belize are nothing more than flooded sinkholes.

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- redfish52
  Posted on March 1, 2013 at 1:08pm
  Yea…but what a ****up way to have to check out…..
  
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Stoic one
Posted on March 1, 2013 at 12:47pm
As the cartoon graphic shows, this is accelerated when pumping water out of the ground. Fact of life – things change in nature without any regard to humans.

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red_white_blue2
Posted on March 1, 2013 at 12:42pm
Could we get one of these installed under the White House and Congress?!!!…Just Sayin’

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- youshuthehellup
  Posted on March 1, 2013 at 1:42pm
  ill be the first in line to help create one!
  
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- objectivetruth
  Posted on March 1, 2013 at 4:20pm
  You will have to fight me for first dibs on that one.
  
  Report this comment
- RamonPreston
  Posted on March 1, 2013 at 7:20pm
  The end of that line is three states away.
  
  Report this comment
kapnkd
Posted on March 1, 2013 at 12:39pm
This has been happening in FL for years and is tragic whenever people literally fall victim to the occurrences.

(This is indeed small in comparison to the political and economic sink hole Obama has put us into.)

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- CatB
  Posted on March 1, 2013 at 1:14pm
  yes ,, I live south of Tampa .. out of the dark beige area .. I haven’t heard much about them down here .. no doubt house insurance rates will go up on sinkhole coverage .. whenever something makes the news they use it as an excuse.
  
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thegreatcarnac
Posted on March 1, 2013 at 12:35pm
Who would think that they would be in their bedroom (probably in bed) and the whole floor collapses, the ground collapses, and in an instant you are deep into the ground and smothering. That is a bad start to your day. It will probably go down to nothing from that point.

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The-Monk
Posted on March 1, 2013 at 12:34pm
Heard this story on the radio this morning. I hope he’s OK. Very sad.

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- Gonzo
  Posted on March 1, 2013 at 12:41pm
  Doesn’t sound promising for him.
  
  Report this comment
- huey6367
  Posted on March 1, 2013 at 12:52pm
  He probably suffocated/drowned. I don’t see how he survived. I would be surprised if they find him at all.
  
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- The-Monk
  Posted on March 1, 2013 at 2:18pm
  Just heard on the news that he didn’t survive. No other details yet.
  
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AmericanStrega
Posted on March 1, 2013 at 12:34pm
Is it possible that these sink-holes are happening because land is built-up where water or swampland once was? Or is it just a limestone base that has become water-logged and is now breaking down. Either/or, I hope the man lost is found alive.

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- huey6367
  Posted on March 1, 2013 at 12:51pm
  I find sinkholes for a living. Let me try to explain it for you and everyone.
  
  Peninsular Florida is underlain by limestone bedrock. Above this sand, silt and clay. Water flows through the limestone and slowly dissolves the limestone. The dissolution of the limestone cause voids to form in it and the cohesive clay that overlies the limestone eventually cannot span gaps (holes) in the rock and the clay breaches causing above it to fall into the hole. A great many sinkholes form from fluctuations in the water table. Rainfall is low during the winter in Florida so the water table is lower and is not supporting the clays resulting in the sinkhole forming. I have seen many, many sinkholes in Florida but this is the first time I have heard of something like this occurring. I have seen them in yards, pastures and under a portion or portions of homes but never directly beneath a home with no expression outside the foot print of the home.
  
  On a side note, the picture above just before the map of US occurred in Frostproof, Florida. Destroyed the house (obviously). The woman of the home was able to get out only when her sliding glass doors shattered. Also, look up the Winter Park sinkhole. That one happened in 1981 and swallowed a couple houses, portions of two streets, a Porsche dealership and part of a municipal swimming pool. Was about 350 feet in diatmeter. Still there but is now a park with a lake in it.
  
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