Sinkholes popping up all over Plant City

A day before the ground caved in, creaking sounds echoed through Cory Greenway's house.

He wasn't worried at the time.

"I didn't think anything about it with this cold weather and whatever," Greenway said.

Then on Monday morning, the earth near his carport crumbled. Blocks cracked and trees tumbled.

"I just can't believe it," Greenway said after a sinkhole about 30 yards wide and 50 feet deep opened on the property his parents have lived on for about 40 years. "I mean, you could definitely hear all those sounds."

His home was one of at least eight damaged by sinkholes Monday, including seven in Plant City.

In Polk, authorities closed County Road 630 near U.S. 27 on Monday morning after the sinkhole swallowed about a dozen trees and a well behind Greenway's house. Three residents of the Southern Pines mobile home park, adjacent to Greenway's property, were evacuated, the Polk County Sheriff's Office said.

Randy Mangrum, the park's property manager, said he got the first call about the sinkhole at 9:30 a.m. By early afternoon, it appeared the worst was over. The cavity stopped just short of Greenway's carport.

"We've seen a few chunks fall since I've been here," Mangrum said. "Nothing major."

The Southwest Florida Water Management District will monitor and take measurements to see if the sinkhole is growing. The cause of the cavity is under investigation. Polk deputies will remain in the area directing traffic on C.R. 630 until the district determines the surrounding area is no longer threatened by the sinkhole, sheriff's spokeswoman Carrie Eleazer said.

The American Red Cross provided relief for affected residents. Greenway, 29, said his friends helped him move furniture and items of sentimental value into a storage trailer. He said he is comforting his father, Bobby Greenway, 72, who also lives in the house.

"My dad was in a very big panic," Cory Greenway said. "He was not doing good. This is his home for 40 years."

In Plant City, Nancy Regan was forced to flee from her home in Oakbrook Mobile Home Park near State Road 574 and Turkey Creek Road about 10 a.m. Monday.

Regan said she was working on her computer when she heard a noise and one of her dogs starting barking. She assumed her boyfriend, Rick Crabtree, a carpenter, was doing some work at first.

"I thought Rick was working in the house but then a neighbor banged on the door and screamed to get out," Regan said.

The door wouldn't open and Regan handed her two dogs out a window to a neighbor, Edgar Mansilla, who then helped the woman crawl out of the window.

Her mobile home was left tilting into a 6-foot slope created by the sinkhole. Residences on either side of the home on Oakwood Lane were threatened by the cavity.

Another sinkhole opened up at about 9 a.m. in the Walden Lake subdivision off Sandalwood Drive in Plant City. A resident noticed creaking sounds and saw the ground around the home was sinking, separating the foundation, walls and roofing. The neighbor's house also shifted 3 to 6 inches, severing the underground water lines and cracking the foundation.

By later afternoon, sinkholes were popping up seemingly everywhere in Plant City.

The largest is at Lone Oak Road east of Turkey Creek Road. It has closed Lone Oak and created a circular, water-filled sinkhole 35 feet across in front of 3201 Lone Oak Road.

And on W. Trapnell Road just east of Drawdy Road, a dry sinkhole collapsed a portion of a wrought iron fence and depressed the ground about five or six feet at the corner of the private property. Heavy equipment is being brought in to attempt to seal the sinkhole.

Two smaller sinkholes and an indication of a third have developed in the a housing development called Magnolia Green, west of Drawdy Road, off W. Trapnell Road.