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Above is a video that B.J. Neely recorded with a drone above the massive sinkhole at Concordia Avenue and Elm Street.

 

VIDALIA, La. — While there is not much the town can do at this point regarding a very large and growing sinkhole at Concordia Avenue and Elm Street, the town has not been idle about it, said Vidalia Mayor Buz Craft.

Craft said the sinkhole is the worst he has ever seen.

It started at a five-foot-wide storm drain that has collapsed at the entire end of Elm. Now the hole is growing into the edge of private residents’ yards across the street from each other and stretching nearly halfway across Concordia Avenue.

Craft said the town has had to reroute sewer lines to take pressure off of the area, but heavy rain over the past few weeks has caused more erosion, making the hole worse.

“There isn’t anything we can do at this point but wait for it to dry out,” Craft said. “Wait and stay away from it. That’s all we can do.”

Anything else could make matters worse, he added.

The Mississippi River is still above the 48-foot flood stage at just over 52 feet as of Friday afternoon but forecasted to continue going down until it reaches normal levels near the end of the month.

When the hole dries out, the town can pack the hole with material, whether it’s dirt or a mixture of asphalt and dirt from the reclaim of street overlay projects, to create a solid base, Craft said

The cost of repairs is hard to determine until it is dry enough to assess the damage, he said.
“What we can see now is just the surface of it,” he said. “There is a five-foot-wide storm drain there and we’ve got to be able to get access to the other end of that toward the Vidalia Canal.”