Crews working to determine solution to south city sinkhole

ST. LOUIS – South city residents woke up to a surprise Wednesday morning.

“I thought I heard something, but I thought it was gunshots because I’m always hearing gunshots here,” Trenia Forbes, nearby resident, said.

What Forbes heard was a giant sinkhole at the intersection of Idaho Avenue and Blow Street. St. Louis City Water Department confirmed a six-inch water main break due to the sinkhole, causing water to be shut off to several homes nearby.

Metropolitan Sewer District was on the scene in the early morning as well.

“It’s hard to say exactly what happened here,” Bess McCoy, MSD Spokesperson, said. “It’s not uncommon, especially in the city where we both have really old infrastructure…either the water main breaks and washes out the sewer line or the sewer line has a break and erodes away soil so that the water main breaks.”

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The water department said the sinkhole was reported Tuesday night around 10 p.m., and grew larger overnight. With a gas line under the section of roadway in addition to an MSD pipe, multiple groups are all working together to determine the cause of the collapse and restore services as quickly as possible.

“Our process is we put a robot in there that has a camera on it,” McCoy said. “We’ll check all of our lines in this area, see if there’s any damage. Once we know what that damage is, we’ll figure out how to repair it and make those repairs as quickly as possible so that city water can get in and make the repairs above us.”

Crews were working to resolve the issue as of late Wednesday afternoon.

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