Escalon Sinkhole

ESCALON, CALIFORNIA.

 
January 01, 2017.

 
Escalon Police located a sinkhole caused by a water leak in the parking lot of Discount Liquors this morning around 7:38 a.m. Escalon City Public Works was notified and on-call personnel responded to the location. It appeared that the water pipe fitting broke loose yesterday evening or early this morning creating the sinkhole.

Crews at the AM/PM construction site had been working near the location of the water leak just a few days ago. The crew used heavy equipment to drive large steel beams into the ground to form a safety barrier for the gasoline tanks to be installed. It didn’t appear that the crew had hit the water pipe, but it could be possible the vibrations from driving the large beams into the ground caused the plastic pipe fitting to give way.

Escalon Public Works personnel were able to locate and turn off the flow of water and pumped the water from the hole. This work took a good portion of the day to complete. Work will continue tomorrow once the ground has dried out enough and the pipe can be reconnected.  It is estimated to take 4 to 5 dump truck loads of soil or sand to backfill the sinkhole.