I can't imagine what it must have been like for the other people in the home. They will be reliving it for a long time.

the Earth literally opened up ans swallowed him

if you are in a dangerous area. What do you do once its happened to the guy next door?

is sink holes can just happen. There are no warning signs prior to the event and is a common occurrence. If you ever fly over Florida the round lakes are created by sink holes. Some can be very large.

I took a limnology class (study of fresh water systems) at UCF my senior year and we only went to one sinkhole lake becasue the ecology, for the most part, is the same for all of them. The professor I had was more interested in the other types of lakes in the region because the ecology of those lakes were varied.

to you too

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022451483

Whatever happens, the banks and mortgage lenders will be protected, and isn't that really the bottom line?

He was a mining engineer and prospected for phosphate by drilling and taking core samples. A builder wanted him to drill the sites for some houses and give an educated opinion about the possibility of sinkholes under those sites in the future. Dad refused the job even though he needed work at the time.

A couple of houses were lost in a sinkhole in a neighborhood in my home town, Bartow, Florida. Fortunately, no one was killed as the people had enough warning to get out and were able to salvage most of their belongings. Today, that neighborhood is still occupied and I would bet few of the people living there know that they are living in a place where a sinkhole swallowed a house and a half.

The problem is that the Karst geology of the area is underlying limestone honeycombed with caverns any one of which can collapse at any time. It just depends on whether the cavern is filled with water, how much of the roof of the cavern is still supported by the underlying structures, and how brittle the limestone is when it is dry.

Dad's recommendation was to build a wide spread house and make the foundation strong enough that if a sinkhole opened under one part of the house, the foundation would support the floor and allow the house to be dragged out of the sinkhole! Most houses in that part of Florida are either on piers that are just set on the surface of the ground (like the house I grew up in) or are poured slabs of concrete with little structural integrity to the slab (which seems to be the type of house the man was killed in).

Today with ground penetrating techniques, shallow caverns under the ground could be located but some of the sinkholes form when caverns much deeper collapse. I'm not sure how deep technology can go.

and they said the place was safe from sink holes . if this is true they should be sued.

nevertheless I have to admit that one of my first thoughts on hearing this story was

"Wrong Bush."

I now profoundly apologize to all those I have offended.

If he didn't suffocate in the mud. The odds are very, very low he could have survived.

there have been no sounds picked up compatible with life for days now.

In all likelihood he suffocated in the mud long ago.

Some years ago I read a horror story of a Florida nurse who came home and found his barn in a sinkhole, with 2 horses trapped. The fire department tried desperately to rescue the horses. Both horses ultimately went under while their person watched crying, screaming and begging for their rescue.

I think struggling to get out just sinks you deeper, yet you instinctively struggle to get out...

It sounds like something out of an Edgar Allen Poe story.

http://classiclit.about.com/library/bl-etexts/eapoe/bl-eapoe-premature.htm

Bad enough to lose their loved one, but now they will never be able to have a proper funeral.

My heart goes out to them. May he rest in peace.

Unfortunately, if you fill in a swamp to create usable land and then
suck out all the ground water from below, the swamp will take it's
lake back.

Another reason to stay away from florida....Gators, Pythons and
killer sink holes.

How do they know?

to detect signs of life. They found none.

so sad for the family...