Huge Sinkhole Devours Part of a Northern Liberties Street
By Justin Udo
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- A sinkhole in the middle of a street in Northern Liberties nearly devoured a pickup truck and had neighbors pointing fingers at the Philadelphia Water Department.
The sinkhole opened up this morning in the 900 block of North Randolph Street, near 6th and Poplar.
Benjamin Rodriguez says his Dodge Ram pickup was parked right over the hole.
"Some guys called me and said, 'Hurry the floor is sinking around your truck,'" he told KYW Newsradio. But he was a little too late: it took a tow truck to get his vehicle free.
Kate Somerville, who lives right across the street from where the sinkhole opened up, says residents have been worried about their street for the last few weeks.
"You just heard (water) coming out," she recalled. "You didn't need any instruments to know that there was something going on underneath."
She says her neighbors called the Philadelphia Water Department to come take a look at the problem because their water stopped working.
"They told her that she was responsible for paying for it," Somerville says the neighbor was told.
And Somerville says they are not strangers to sinkholes opening up on this street. A similar thing happened back in May.
"Randolph Street is all patched up. I don't know why they just don't do the whole thing at once," she said today.
