A Sumter County road crew was busy working Monday morning at the intersection of County Road 466 and County Road 101 in The Villages where a sinkhole opened up Saturday morning.
The crew had to remove large chunks of blacktop before assessing the problem and figuring out how to proceed in fixing the sinkhole, which is located at the intersection in the northbound lane of County Road 101 near a storm drain. Traffic on that portion of the roadway at the entrance to the Village of Summerhill, just west of the Southern Trace Plaza and across from The Villages High School, originally had been diverted to alternate routes, but crews were able to put barricades around the sinkhole and reopen one lane late Saturday morning.
The initial sinkhole didn’t appear to be very large, but the depression under it was somewhat bigger. A road crew marked the entire depression with white lines Saturday morning and Community Watch personnel were on hand to make sure no one drove over the hole or walked on top of it.
It is unclear how long it will take to have the roadway completely repaired and both lanes of northbound County Road 101 reopened for traffic.
Sinkholes have presented numerous problems in Florida’s Friendliest Hometown over the past years, with the most visible being on McLawren Terrace in the Village of Calumet Grove, where two homes have been deemed unlivable. That neighborhood is still dealing with the issue and homeowners are fearful of their property values dropping.
Community Development District 4, which includes the Village of Calumet Grove, also is facing the sobering reality of $560,000 in unexpected costs stemming from the sinkholes that opened up in February and May.
Those sinkholes also led Smithsonian Magazine to take a look at the situation. The scholarly online magazine declared: “The Villages is a hotbed of sinkholes.” And it pointed out that sinkholes occur more frequently in Florida than in any other state.