A sinkhole near a Ventura construction site knocked down the shed and two vehicles Tuesday morning as the ground collapsed several feet.
The sinkhole formed next to the building of a future apartment on East Front Street near South Laurel Street, but mainly damaged the adjacent lot where several vehicles were parked. The sinkhole is less than a mile from the Ventura Pier and is even closer to the sea.
No one was injured in the collapse. Ventura city officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the sinkhole. Representatives of the company building the apartments were also unable to contact us for comment.
Tron Elliott, who owns a nearby auto repair shop, said his neighbor grabbed him early Tuesday after he noticed the ground was moving. Both Elliott and his neighbor store their vehicles in the lot where sinkholes were eventually formed.
“We found it sinking and it was beginning to fall,” Elliott said in an interview with the Times. “It just happened to be where my truck was.”
The two men worked together to try and move the two before the movement accelerated, trying to move the two together. When Elliot worked to safely pull out the third vehicle, he said the ground moved again and his son yelled at him to go outside.
“I was trying to tow another truck,” said Elliot, the owner of performance at Elliott, an auto repair shop, about 100 yards from the sinkhole. “I put it on the floor because it collapsed.”
Shortly after he moved the car, he turned around and collapsed on his personal black truck as he saw the customer’s blue pickup truck descending down to sinking Earth. As the ground shifted a little more, movement pushed the covered pouch into the edge of the sinkhole, hanging unsteady.
“I think it’s pretty good,” Elliott said.
City officials later came and slammed the area red and declared it was too dangerous for anyone to enter, Elliott said.
He didn’t know what caused the sinkhole, but said there hadn’t been any further movement since the beginning of Tuesday. He was worried about how another large apartment building would affect the area, so he wasn’t particularly concerned about the future sinkhole.
“There are so many apartment complexes so many that they’re trying to get us out,” Elliott said of the area’s small businesses. “We’re looking forward to some growth, but this is out of control.”
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