CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — A Corpus Christi family got quite a surprise when they arrived home to find their trash cans had been swallowed up by the ground after a large sinkhole opened up in their backyard.
"They were down in the bottom of this hole," said Bruce Goulet.
Families who live along Capri Drive off Weber Road are used to the occasional pothole after a hard rain. However, at the end of the street where it curves, Goulet and his family discovered something much larger when they came home after a Labor Day outing.
The sinkhole measures about eight feet wide, and four feet deep exposing everything from roots to a large pipe, even wires.
The sinkhole being the first for the family who have called the southside home for the last 20 years.
"We've never had anything like this," Goulet said.
According to Goulet, the recent rain following months without it, might have something to do with it.
"I imagine the drought, being the cracks and where it separates and when all the water starts coming back in it probably erodes to somewhere," Goulet said.
But for the more scientific reason, we reached out to Veronica Sanchez, an assistant director of geology at Texas A&M-University Kingsville.
"The sediments being really weak with the amount of water we've been getting and then you get these expansions with the clay," Sanchez said, "and then you have sediments that may still have water retained from when they were first laid out. In other words, they haven't been deep enough just sitting there on the surface."
Although rare, sometimes sinkholes can come without warning, but the professor said there can also be ways to identify trouble in the making.
"Maybe the vegetation starts to grow in those areas, if it is in your backyard, and the water is pooling to one side and makes these ponds," Sanchez said.
The sinkhole stops between the driveway and the fence line.
"You can see where the driveway is falling right off. It is bizarre," Goulet said.
According to Bruce, the city came out to inspect it and plan to return to fill the unplanned landscaping project in his backyard.
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