Sink hole reveals beautiful cave (1 Viewer)

[Linda]

The local news reported on a newly found cave a little north of us. A hole opened up in a neighborhood street and showed a spectacular cave. This area has a lot of limestone, which produces many karst formations. So, there are quite a few caves around.

One of the big ones, Inner Space Caverns, on IH 35 near Georgetown was discovered when the highway was being expanded. They were drilling to check on the subsurface, and the drill bit just fell away. If you visit the caverns, you can see the place where the drill went through. (They changed the route of the expansion.)

The article has several photos, which show both interior and street views. It looks like some houses are right on top of the cave. Wonder what that is like?!?

http://kxan.com/2018/02/09/photos-40-foot-deep-cave-discovered-under-brushy-creek-neighborhood/?utm_source=Master+List&utm_campaign=0275842de7-WWWT_0118_pm&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_5f67ac3218-0275842de7-190177569

 

[Lila]

Beautiful and cool in an 'Oh, Shoot!' kind of way.
Just goes to show you never know what's under your feet.
In the pictures you can see plenty of roadway collapse along the line of the cavern underneath. There goes the neighbourhood (and the neighbourhood housing prices).

I guess nobody dug any foundations for those houses? At least not very deep?

 

[Anaeika]

I wonder what the city plans to do with this discovery. It’s right in a neighborhood. And I want to go spelunking.

 

[Linda]

Here is an update on the cave, which they've discovered has 4 chambers and is 200 feet long. There is a video and pictures that show more, including the houses that are on top of it. Turns out there is only 6-8 feet of surface area over the cave. All the excavation tests for roads and the subdivision development must have just missed it. One of the houses has a pool that is just outside the cave perimeter. If it had been on top of the cave, the excavation would have discovered it.

The video shows what the rocks look like - way too crumbly for me. Since this area is not too far from us, I considered it from a different perspective. My first thought was would regular house insurance cover something like this, as well as how in the world would you be able to sell your home because a bank would balk at the safety of their investment.

http://www.kvue.com/article/news/local/engineers-find-fourth-chamber-in-cave-unveiled-beneath-wilco-homes/269-516002922