Sinkhole

A State Highway Administration contractor is probing the ground under part of Route 31 where a sinkhole opened in March 1994, fatally injuring a 24-year-old Taneytown man.The tests are a routine pre-construction check, said Richard M. Smith, SHA maintenance facilities supervisor."

Redland Genstar Inc. has settled a multimillion-dollar lawsuit by the widow of a Westminster city employee killed in 1994 after his van plunged into a sinkhole on the road to New Windsor.Jury selection was to have begun yesterday for an estimated three-week trial, but instead the attorneys met privately with Carroll County Circuit Judge Raymond E. Beck Sr.Robert W. Knight was driving to New Windsor about 2 a.m. March 31, 1994, to get food during his shift at Westminster Wastewater Treatment Plant.

Redland Genstar Inc. has settled a multimillion-dollar lawsuit by the widow of a Westminster city employee killed in 1994 after his van plunged into a sinkhole on the road to New Windsor.Jury selection was to begin yesterday for an estimated three-week trial, but instead the attorneys met privately with Carroll County Circuit Judge Raymond E. Beck Sr.Robert W. Knight was driving to New Windsor about 2 a.m. March 31, 1994, to get food during his shift at Westminster Wastewater Treatment Plant.

The widow of a Westminster city employee who died in 1994 after his van plunged into a sinkhole settled her claim yesterday against the state for $50,000.In court papers, Nancy Lee Knight asked to drop the state as a defendant in her $13 million lawsuit against the state and a nearby quarry operator. The settlement is the maximum amount she can recover under the 1984 Maryland Tort Claims Act and the much older doctrine of sovereign immunity.The case is set for trial Nov. 30 in Carroll County Circuit Court with the remaining defendant, Redland Genstar Inc., operator of the Medford quarry.

The widow of a Westminster city employee who died in 1994 after his van plunged into a sinkhole settled her claim yesterday against the state for $50,000.In court papers, Nancy Lee Knight asked to drop the state as a defendant in her $13 million lawsuit against the state and a nearby quarry operator. The settlement is the maximum amount she can recover under the 1984 Maryland Tort Claims Act and the much older doctrine of sovereign immunity.The case is set for trial Nov. 30 in Carroll County Circuit Court with the remaining defendant, Redland Genstar Inc., operator of the Medford quarry.

The way John Naumann Jr. sees it, Baltimore County officials caused $30,000 in damage to his home because they ignored a leaky storm drain for 10 years -- and he wants them to pay up.Naumann claims that the underground drain, which runs between the two houses he owns on Goldenwood Road in Rosedale, is responsible for erosion that led to an unstable foundation under one home, cracks running up the walls and across the driveways, sloping sidewalks and sinkholes.But...

Motorists and residents who have been long inconvenienced by the gaping sinkhole that opened under a busy downtown Baltimore intersection three weeks ago can begin using the area today.Department of Public Works officials plan to reopen the intersection of Park Avenue and Franklin Street in Mount Vernon this morning at 6."Everything should be done," said Kurt L. Kocher, spokesman for the department.Franklin Street was repaved and opened to traffic Thursday. The Park Avenue section was repaved yesterday.

The Franklin Street sinkhole that erupted into flames last week has sent the women and families at a nearby YWCA shelter scrambling for a place to sleep.Sixty-three temporary residents counted on the YWCA for food, shelter and stability. But the street collapse and subsequent fire -- which came within a few feet of the building -- forced an immediate evacuation followed by days of disruption.Eighteen of the former residents have found long-term lodging in other shelters, but YWCA officials say 45 others are bouncing among friends and family members with little means to care for them.

Almost two years to the day since a Taneytown man died when his car plunged 18 feet into a sinkhole on Route 31 near Westminster, state highway officials are expected to begin tests today to determine if a depression discovered Tuesday could cause a similar collapse of the road.State geologists have inspected the suspected sinkhole, on the westbound shoulder of the road, about a half-mile west of McGregor Road. The depression is 5 feet in diameter and TC inches deep, State Highway Administration officials said.

A tree trimmer was injured about 9 a.m. yesterday near New Windsor when he fell into a sinkhole following a mishap involving an electrical line. He was listed in fair and stable condition last night at the Maryland Shock Trauma Center.Robert G. Tasker, 23, of Kingwood, W. Va., was trimming trees in a small wooded area near Nicodemus and Brick Church Roads when one of the branches fell and hit a power line, rescue workers said.Mr. Tasker -- an employee of Penn Line Services of Scottsdale, Pa. -- was knocked about 35 feet into the sinkhole, the rescue workers reported.

With a major section set in Baltimore, "American Casino," a documentary about the subprime mortgage crisis, has the power of a haymaker that somehow sneaks up on you. It's a nightmare that starts like a normal daytime drive and ends in a vortex-like sinkhole. The director, Leslie Cockburn, and her co-writer (and husband), Andrew Cockburn, design their work as a reported essay, not a grandstanding polemic or a nonfiction novel. They personalize our financial system with a no-nonsense frankness.

Nearly three years after a large sinkhole formed in the parking lot of an Annapolis high-rise apartment building, the city's public housing authority is set to spend nearly $1 million on repairs. Construction, to be completed in two parts, is scheduled to begin before the end of the year and is expected to take two to six months to complete, depending on weather, according to Eric Brown, executive director of the Housing Authority of Annapolis. "In fact, what we have are several sinkholes, not just one," Brown said.

Anne Arundel County is closing a stretch of a Severna Park road today because of a sinkhole. St. Andrew's Road between St. Ives Drive and St. Andrew's Crossover will be closed until further notice, while the road is repaired. Matt Diehl, a county spokesman, said the sinkhole formed after heavy rain and an irrigation pipe from the Chartwell Golf and Country Club broke. It has grown to 10 feet wide by 30 feet long, but is mostly on the side of the road. Residents can access the neighborhood from Benfield Road via Saint Ives Drive and Saint Andrew's Crossover.

CAMP SPRINGS -- Dan Walsh knew something was very wrong when he heard someone pounding on the back door. Roused from sleep, Walsh stumbled to answer the noise. Standing outside his house early yesterday was a Prince George's County firefighter, who informed Walsh that his backyard, drenched by rain, had sunk about 10 feet and that he'd better get out before the house went with it. "I saw the firefighter and the sinkhole at the same time, and I thought, `Oh, my God,'" Walsh recalled a few hours later, puffing nervously on a cigarette.

High winds and torrential rains that topped 6 inches in parts of Southern Maryland stranded motorists, toppled trees and cut electric service to tens of thousands of customers yesterday, while a widening sinkhole threatened to swallow a cluster of homes in Prince George's County. Although forecasters expected sunny skies to replace the clouds today, they warned that rain could return before the end of the week. Yesterday's record deluge, which capped five days of rain, closed schools in Charles and Worcester counties.

A patch of Swiss cheese-like earth in Frederick collapsed in on itself along Interstate 70 yesterday, creating a large sinkhole that closed the two main westbound travel lanes and caused major delays for travelers. The sinkhole - described as being the size of a Ford Escort - developed near the South Street exit yesterday morning in a part of the Frederick Valley known for its unstable soils. State Highway Administration crews, alerted by a state police trooper, arrived at the scene even before the sinkhole fully developed.

The federal agency overseeing the Housing Authority of the City of Annapolis will not provide money to help repair two large sinkholes outside an apartment building for the elderly and disabled, saying that the authority is making "reasonable" progress on its own. Instead, the Baltimore office of the Department of Housing and Urban Development offered in a Jan. 7 letter to help the authority secure money from the city and Anne Arundel County. The city has refused to help amid concerns that the Housing Authority isn't spending its own money and the Glenwood high-rise is not in the county's jurisdiction.

The 5-foot-deep craterlike sinkhole outside an Annapolis public housing building is filled with large white rocks to keep it from expanding. Three years after it formed and months after Annapolis Housing Authority officials said they were trying to get money to repair the hole, it is still eliminating dozens of parking spots for residents of the Glenwood high-rise, all of whom are elderly or disabled. Now, the sinkhole has a little brother: A second one has formed in the rear of the parking lot that circles the 154-unit building.

Five years after he lost re-election as chairman of the Housing Authority of the City of Annapolis' Board of Commissioners, Howard Pinskey is back in the driver's seat. The seven-member board voted unanimously Wednesday for Pinskey, a 10-year board member who led the group from 1998 to 2002 and later served as treasurer, saying he could provide stability to the troubled authority. Pinskey said he and the board will continue to focus on the agency's mission of providing safe, quality homes to residents of 10 public housing communities by redeveloping the oldest buildings and curbing crime.

Sherman Offer was taking his daily walk around his Annapolis apartment building one day when the pavement opened and swallowed his leg. The hole that Offer, 66, encountered 2 1/2 years ago was about the size of a basketball. It has grown into a giant sinkhole, slowly eating nearly 40 parking spaces at the Glenwood high-rise for senior citizens -- an inconvenience for residents, an eyesore for the community and a source of frustration for the federally funded agency that manages the building.