That caller was talking about a crater that opened up in the road on Greenlawn Avenue. There was a bigger sinkhole on North Jersey Street in Dayton, that swallowed the tire of a woman's car.
"I opened my door and realized that the ground had actually caved in around my tire," said the driver.
The biggest hole our area right now is located in Tipp City.
"it was shocking. This whole road is gone," said Skylar Gimmey. "This is a once in a lifetime kind of thing."
Several cars could fit into the hole and city officials say it will take months to repair at a cost of $340,000.
Jim Brinegar, the Director of Dayton Street Maintenance is in charge of fixing the holes when they open up within the city limits. He blames hard freezes from a brutal winter disturbing the soil followed by a wet spring.
"We are getting a lot more calls about sinkholes," said Brinegar. "Sometimes we can't ever determine what caused the pocket. They just form."
We did some digging of our own and found that Clark, Greene and Montgomery Counties are more prone to sinkholes compared to other areas in our region. We also learned that fixing a sinkhole is not easy or cheap. An estimate by one insurance company showed the average claim costs more than $86,000.
Kathy Staiger was shocked to find a hole on her property in Beavercreek several months ago.
"Somebody would have gotten killed if they had fallen into it," Staiger said.
She sent a camera down into the hole and it was 29 feet deep. The stone down there tells experts that it is probably an abandoned well and not a sinkhole. Staiger got another shock when she called her insurance company.
"They do not cover sinkholes, land movements and earthquakes," said Staiger. "Had my house fallen in, that would have been catastrophic and I would have had absolutely zero coverage, zero coverage."
We contacted the Ohio Insurance Institute and they said most policies exclude coverage for sinkholes. Some offer optional coverage but the likelihood of a catastrophic collapse in our area is low.
Officials said the biggest threat for a sinkhole in the Dayton area comes from a water main break.
"Those can wash out a significant amount of soil in a short period of time. There have been cars swallowed in Ohio from those kinds of washouts," said Brinegar.
In other parts of the country, sinkholes have claimed lives as well as property. A man disappeared when one opened up under his Florida home and to this date, he has never been found.
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