Bankrupt Harrisburg, Pa., Can’t Fix 41 Sinkholes Plaguing Streets
Donald Gilliland/ The Patriot-News
Locals took to calling the North Fourth sinkhole “Super Sinkhole Walter,” and even made it a “check in” location on Four Square.
HERE By Philip Caulfield / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Friday, February 1, 2013, 3:16 PM
Pennsylvania’s state capital is suffering from a rash of monster sinkholes, but city officials are too broke to do anything about it.
Loose soil and leaky, century-old underground water pipes are to blame for the municipal nightmare, which came to a head on the New Year’s Eve when a 50-foot sinkhole yawned open along Fourth Street, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Donald Gilliland/ The Patriot-News
A “super sinkhole” at Fourth and Woodbine Streets in Harrisburg, Pa., last month. There are around 41 such sinkholes in the city, but the local government is too broke to fix them.
Loose soil and leaky, century-old underground water pipes are to blame for the municipal nightmare, which came to a head on the New Year’s Eve when a 50-foot sinkhole yawned open along Fourth Street, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Joe Hermitt/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Crews working in a trench on North Front Street. The sinkhole collapsed around New Year’s, resulting in the loss of water, gas and sewer services.
The eight-foot deep crater — one of at least 41 in the city — is so large, locals made it a “check-in” site on the social media site Four Square.
Some cheeky residents and the media nicknamed the hole “Super Sinkhole Walter.”
Via Google Maps
A map of sinkhole locations around Harrisburg.
Part of Harrisburg’s financial woes stem from a disastrous city plan to borrow some $300 million to upgrade a trash incinerator, the Journal reported.
The borrowing spree forced Harrisburg to default on its debt and left the city lacking funds to fix roads, pipes or other critical infrastructure.
In addition to the sinkholes, the city has also been unable to fix a sewage treatment plant that is dumping toxic waste into the Susquehanna River, which flows into the Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic, the Journal reported.
Several of the sinkholes, including the one that opened on Fourth Street on New Year’s Eve, have forced residents to evacuate their homes. Some lost water, gas and sewer services.
Sharaun Davis, 33, who lives near the sinkhole, told local newspaper The Patriot News that she had to relocate her family to a hotel because construction on the hole was causing her home to shake.
“I’m hearing literally the dry wall cracking,” she told the newspaper earlier this month. “We’ve had to change our whole life.”
One engineer said it would cost $25 million to fix all of the sinkholes, the Journal reported. Some of them have been patched temporarily.
Local lawmakers have called on Gov. Tom Corbett to foot a portion of the bill using state funds.
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