Crews are making repairs in a Miami Gardens neighborhood after a sinkhole that formed due to a water main rupture partially swallowed a man’s van, triggering efforts to get the vehicle out.
Half of the van could be seen poking above the road while the rest of it was below in a hole, as water splashed around next to it, in the area of Northwest 193rd Street and 34th Court, Monday.
The van’s owner, Steven Coney, said it was a chaotic situation.
“It was a total mess,” he said. “If you get close enough to it, you can see the back end steady bouncin’.”
When Coney left for work, he said, his van was parked on the road.
Then his neighbor called him to rush back.
“I’m thinking to myself, ‘What in the world could that be?’ Then I thought about the paint line that I saw earlier,” said Coney. “I noticed that it started from the property across the street, because they had the cable box sitting right in the inside of the sidewalk, and they ran in a straight line right across towards my van, and I assume that it was probably aiming towards the cable box on my side.”
Miami Gardens Police officers blocked off the area after getting called to the neighborhood about a water main break.
“There was a subcontractor working in the area, hit a water main pipe, which caused the water to flood the streets as well for the van to sink,” said Miami Gardens Police spokesperson Carolyn Frazer.
Coney said he needs the van as a backup car.
“I don’t have transportation, and the line of work I do, I need transportation,” he said.
Coney said he is trying to stay positive.
“I don’t know, I really don’t know. I’m just trusting God to lead me and, you know, come up with a solution,” he said.
Several crews worked all afternoon to get the van out and patch up the hole.
Water in the neighborhood was shut off in order to get it done.
“I normally turn the news on in the evening and see this happening to somebody else, but today is my turn, I guess,” said Coney.
Area residents said they were without water until around 9:30 p.m. on Monday.
No injuries were reported.
By Tuesday morning, the van was back in his driveway.
7News cameras captured crews hard at work repairing the water main.
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