Holes in the Road

From time to time, especially in early Spring when the ice melts, the drivers of NY like to complain about the holes in the road.   After viewing the video clip about this hole in a Los Angeles road, I think it is clear that the good folks in Queens don't have anything worth griping about.   But then I remember many years ago (1981), while vacationing in the Kissimmee, Florida area, we took a side trip to Winter Park, Florida, just to see a sinkhole that had developed there.  I was pleasantly surprised today to find a video about that sink hole on Youtube.   But that hole wasn't something you'd compare to a pothole in a road.   It was more like a hole in the earth.  That Winter Park sinkhole ate a house, a car dealership, a part of a community swimming pool and left a yawning deep chasm in the middle of the town.   It swallowed five expensive Porsche sports cars (from the car dealership), but so far as I know, no people died as a result of that hole's formation.

There are another couple of aerial shots of the Winter Park sinkhole on this web page.   Looking at a map of Winter Park, Florida, there are numerous large circular lakes in town.   Red flag A marks the spot where the sink hole formed in 1981.   I was surprised at what a relatively small pond the sinkhole formed now that it has filled up with water.    You'll need to zoom in on the map to even seen that small circular pond.

I hope Florida won't mind that I've got Winter Park, Florida on my short list of places to not consider for my some-day retirement home, right up there with Centralia, Pennsylvania.

Drive carefully wherever you are.

Drew