Posted: Mar 26, 2013 10:53 PM EDTUpdated: Mar 26, 2013 10:56 PM EDT
By: Deborah Bowden, FOX 13 News - bio
SEFFNER (FOX 13) -
Some Seffner residents fear there may be a sinkhole under their duplex on Peach Avenue. If confirmed, it would be the fourth sinkhole in the Seffner area in the past month -- including the one that swallowed Jeffrey Bush as he slept inside his home.
Jessica Alfaro knew right away something was wrong. She said the living room in her family's apartment is sloping, creaking and rubbery.
"If you were to touch it, it's going up and down and comes back up," she said.
Her wheelchair-bound father lives in the home with her, along with her brother, sister and newborn niece.
"She's like, 'does it sound like it's good?' I was like, no it doesn't. Once we sat down, so much noise started happening. I thought, this is crazy, I'm calling 911. They said it's time to get out," Alfaro said.
Fire crews checked it out and took every precaution before going inside. They put a ladder across the floor, and used rope to tether themselves to a telephone pole outside.
"The time is actually buckled up quite a bit," said Jessica Damico from Hillsborough County Fire Rescue. "It's not like a normal tile crack you would see. It's buckled up a few inches above the slab."
Outside, large cracks can be seen in the wall. Fire crews said they aren't sure what's causing it.
"It sounded hollow to them, but they're not sure if the tiles are just loose. It's beneath the tiles and the floor. Or if there's actually some holes beneath the slab," Damico said.
For Keith Simpson, who lives next door, it's a total shock. He came home to the scene after a 10-hour day at work.
"I just got to be calm about it and just pray. Hope everything will be alright," he said.
The duplex is more than two miles away from the sinkhole that killed Jeff Bush on March 1st. His brother jumped in the hole, but couldn't save him.
Engineers and geologists said efforts to try to recover his body were too dangerous. The sinkhole became his final resting place, in a story that drew attention from across the nation and worldwide.
An expert will come out to the home Wednesday morning to figure out if they're dealing with a sinkhole, or just some severe settling.
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