State College townhomes deemed ‘unsafe’ after sinkhole, water main break on Christmas
A sinkhole and water main break in a parking lot Sunday has created an unsafe situation for nearly 20 townhomes in Patton Township.
On Sunday evening, a sinkhole opened up in the parking lot for 18 townhomes between 432-466 Amblewood Way, Walt Schneider, agency director at Centre Region Code Administration, said. Once on site, crews worked to safely get the parking lot emptied and to get residents into a “safe situation,” Schneider said. The State College Borough Water Authority was on site, he said.
“We weren’t sure the extent of the damage, we weren’t sure the extent of the problem at that point. But it really was just trying to control the problem,” Schneider said. “... What we have now is a sinkhole and a broken water main. There is observable structural issues with a number of units on both sides of the parking lot.”
Residents living in the 18 affected townhomes have been told that the buildings are currently “posted as unsafe” and emergency management from the Centre Region has worked with those who needed help finding temporary assistance, he said. The homeowners association has continued to coordinate directly with the residents.
Brian Heiser, executive director of the State College Borough Water Authority, said it’s the authority’s opinion that the sinkhole has been in existence for a “period of time” and the main was not being supported by anything because it was over top of the sinkhole. It eventually collapsed.
“Because the main was not supported, it essentially had a full scale failure because it just couldn’t support itself anymore,” Heiser said. As the ground continued to shift, it fell away and broke in several places.
Schneider said he and a number of experts on the site, geotechnical engineering and soils were at the site Tuesday and all agreed that until the soil thaws, they may not know the full extent of the damage. With the warmer weather expected this weekend, he hopes that things will defrost.
“We may be looking at some additional investigation based on what we’ve seen, to see if there are additional voids under the parking lot that aren’t showing up because … frozen ground may be more firm than when it thaws, we may see some movement,” Schneider said.
The homeowners affected by the incident have been told to contact their insurance companies; Schneider said a meeting with all parties will be set up in the coming week.
There were some other residents who were affected but their service was restored Monday afternoon, Heiser said.
This type of failure is “not typical,” he said. A typical break would take hours to fix, but in this instance, they’re looking at days.
“Maintenance is extremely important to us,” Heiser said. SCBWA has an active leak detection program and its unaccounted-for water — water that’s lost when a main breaks — is at 10%. For comparison, the state’s target is 20%, so SCBWA is at half of the state’s target, he said.
