Sinkhole opens up on busy road in front of Cobb elementary school, affects traffic on Thursday

Officials say a storm drain collapsed overnight, creating a giant sinkhole, which was finally fixed at around 6 p.m. on Thursday.

Channel 2′s Michael Seiden was in Austell on Thursday, where he spoke with those impacted by the sinkhole.

“I gotta lot of stuff to do, and this kind of took away time from what I needed to do,” Antoine Scott said.

Outside a busy pawn shop off Austell Road, customers like Scott and Albert Preston shared their frustrations with the sinkhole.

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“Usually, I’m just used to coming down Austell, but I had to go back streets. Go through a school zone. It was a little bit difficult getting to where I needed to go today,” Scott said.

Officials with GDOT say they were forced to close down a portion of the road outside Milford Elementary School after a storm drain collapsed overnight, creating a large hole.

“It’s a lot of traffic coming this way during the daytime,” Preston said.

NewsChopper 2 flew above the scene Thursday morning, hours before students and teachers began arriving at school.

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A teacher, who asked us to remain unidentified, told Channel 2 Action News that the road work did not cause any delays during drop-off, but neighbors in this area say they will avoid it until the road has re-opened.

“It is going to get worse if they’re not done in the next couple of hours,” Preston said.

“Time is of the essence,” Scott said.

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