Strange Sounds – May 13, 2021
Lone Elk Park in St. Louis County has a leaky lake — and an SUV-sized sinkhole that opened up there in recent days has drained about a third of it.
St. Louis County Parks Director Tom Ott said he got word Friday that the lake had dropped about 3 feet, and then enough water drained away over the weekend to reveal the sinkhole.
This isn’t the first time this has happened at the manmade lake, called the Lone Elk Reservoir, said Ott. In 2016, a similar sinkhole about 4 to 5 feet across appeared in the vicinity of the new one. Then, they had someone inspect it and had concrete slurry poured into the hole to patch it.
The county will get a hydraulic engineer to look at the sinkhole, and will send someone with a drone to take pictures of it. They’ll also add signage along the shoreline to warn people to keep away.
Ott wonders if a small-magnitude earthquake reported near Eureka on April 20 shook anything loose.
He said that in the early 1990s the lake was always full, but in the past 20 years it hasn’t held water the way it should. “We’ve had people look at it — they couldn’t tell where it was leaking,” he said.
Meanwhile, all lanes on the Hernando Desoto Bridge were closed Tuesday until further notice after an inspection found a crack that requires investigation.
Memphis Police said the bridge is being inspected, and it is unknown when the I-40 bridge will reopen. It could be closed for month…
Right now, drivers can use the Interstate 55 bridge to cross the Mississippi River.
Now, if you add to this giant sinkhole, the shutdown of the I-40 bridge in downtown Memphis due to infrastructure damage and the hacked (?) pipeline… Are these more signs of the overdue New Madrid earthquake?