Ruptured 50-Inch Sewer Pipe Being Blamed For Brooklyn Sinkhole
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- A broken 50-inch sewer pipe is being blamed for creating a huge sinkhole on a Brooklyn street.
A 20-foot section of pavement on 79th Street in Bay Ridge opened up Wednesday leaving a huge sinkhole and nearly swallowing a car.
1010 WINS' John Montone reports
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Annette Flood parked her car here just minutes before the ground beneath it simply sank away with her car in it.
"We narrowly missed being involved in something worse," she said.
YouTube video shot by a neighbor shows emergency crews spending nearly two hours carefully planning and delicately pulling the car out of danger.
The fire department and members of the New York City Department of Environmental Protection were able to rig a device to pull the car from the sinkhole's edge .
"They put a band around the middle of it," Flood said. "I really don't know how they got it out, but they did."
While the DEP said the sinkhole was caused by a 50-inch sewer pipe dating back to 1900 that burst beneath the pavement, some residents said the street has been compromised by a lot of recent road work.
This is the second time in a month there's been a sinkhole in a 15 block radius, residents said.
"The work is shabby, they're not doing the work right," said resident Christine Hansen. "It's not being filled in properly."
Crews were able to stabilize the hole Wednesday night, but may be there for days working to fill it in, officials said.
"It's a reasonably deep excavation so we have to be cautious about how we go about it so it's safely done," said DEP official Jim Roberts.
No one was injured when the street gave way. Crews are expected to be on the scene through the weekend.
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