40ft Sink hole opens under Corvette Museum, swallows 8 cars

[CodeRedR51]

This just happened this morning.

http://www.autoblog.com/2014/02/12/national-corvette-museum-sinkhole/

 

[xXKingJoshXx]

This was unexpected (as are all sinkholes) but you definitely don't think of a museum to be victim of a sinkhole!

If I'm able to get close tomorrow, I'll definitely get as many pictures as possible, but I imagine it will be cleaned up quite a bit before I get there.

 

[Eunos_Cosmo]

Does the C7 Z06 displease the Corvette gods? I told you they should have kept in N/A!!

 

[xXKingJoshXx]

Here is some more info from their website:

We received a call at 5:44am from our security company alerting us of our motion detectors going off in our Skydome area of the Museum. Upon arrival it was discovered that a sinkhole had collapsed within the Museum. No one was in or around the Museum at the time. The Bowling Green Fire Department arrived on the scene and secured the area. The Fire Department has estimated the size of the hole is 40 feet across and 25-30 feet deep.

It is with heavy hearts that we report that eight Corvettes were affected by this incident. Those cars include:

• 1993 ZR-1 Spyder on loan from General Motors
• 2009 ZR1 “Blue Devil” on loan from General Motors

The other six vehicles were owned by the National Corvette Museum including:

• 1962 Black Corvette
• 1984 PPG Pace Car
• 1992 White 1 Millionth Corvette
• 1993 Ruby Red 40th Anniversary Corvette
• 2001 Mallett Hammer Z06 Corvette
• 2009 White 1.5 Millionth Corvette

None of the cars affected were on loan from individuals. The Skydome exhibit area of the Museum is a separate structure connected to the main Museum. A structural engineer is now on-site to assess the existing damage and stability of the surrounding areas. The Museum is closed to the public for the day to allow us to carefully assess the situation. We will keep everyone informed as we know more.

With the 20th Anniversary celebration, Grand Opening of the NCM Motorsports Park, and the National Corvette Caravan coming August 27-30, we’ve got a lot to be excited about in 2014, and look forward to getting the Skydome repaired and reopened very soon.

 

[Eunos_Cosmo]

They should stabilize the cars as they rest, make it accessible & safe, and leave it as an exhibit.

 

[TheCracker]

From what i've read, someone tried to sneak in a 3000GT and pass it off as a 'vette.

 

[Adamgp]

They should pull the Corvettes out of the hole, then fill the hole back in with Porsche 911's.

 

[Jump_Ace]

Why couldn't it happen at the Dodge Neon Museum instead? Sad day.


Jerome

 

[Ranman20]

No not the vettes!

 

[FoolKiller]

That section of the state is notorious for sinkholes, as it is over a large section of the Mammoth Cave chain. Most of Kentucky is hollow from caves, quarries, and mines.

This is tragic, and a huge loss in both automotive history and value. The sky dome is where they kept some of the more meaningful cars.

Hopefully, this won't wind up like many other sink holes in the area, where an underground water flow makes it impossible to fill in permanently. Other spots in Bowling Green get filled in just to reform in a few years.

 

[Badasp5.0]

Interesting and sad. I had no idea KY had sink holes. Shame those cars got damaged.

 

[xXKingJoshXx]

Here are pictures of 7 of the 8 cars that fell into the sinkhole before the sinkhole happened.

 

[ildd]

Any possibility this was a failed heist? I mean, come on... a sinkhole in the middle of a museum floor?

 

[homeforsummer]

Saw this earlier. Prefer Motor Authority's headline Still though, ouch. They were lucky, from what I've heard, as some of their really valuable and irreplaceable models avoided the hole.

Even scarier to think what might have happened had this happened during trading hours. One thing losing a bunch of cars, it'd be quite another had some people got caught up with it.

 

[FoolKiller]

Interesting and sad. I had no idea KY had sink holes. Shame those cars got damaged.

Kentucky is home to world's largest cave system, Mammoth Cave, which appears to connect to other caves in multiple other states. When I was in college at Western Kentucky University (in Bowling Green) the geology department theorized that it is quite possible that we will eventually find Kentucky is the hub of a cave system that goes under most of the Eastern a United States. This was after a spelunker graduate student that my brother knew led a class on a spelunking research mission and found themselves suddenly in a mapped, but dangerous, section of Mammoth Cave.

With caves come sinkholes.

Here is a map of karst (geological formations created by dissolved bedrock) potential in Kentucky. Karst can mean caves, sinkholes, etc. Bowling Green is right around the space between the words Pennyroyal Region in Western Pennyroyal Region.

 

[xXKingJoshXx]

Any possibility this was a failed heist? I mean, come on... a sinkhole in the middle of a museum floor?

You've been playing too much GTAV lately...


Seriously though, I highly doubt it had any human cause. They would've seen them on the security cameras.

 

[CaddyKOP]

Ow...my heart is in pain.

 

[FoolKiller]

Any possibility this was a failed heist? I mean, come on... a sinkhole in the middle of a museum floor?

They swallow entire houses. This isn't the first time one formed under a building and caused a collapse, just one of the few times it was a somewhat famous building.

 

[CodeRedR51]

 

[Omnis]

Corvette Man Cave exhibit coming soon?

 

[Badasp5.0]

@ FoolKiller thanks for the info very interesting.

 

[Slash]

Hope they all get fixed!


EDIT:

 

[CodeRedR51]

 

[Danoff]

The thing is, I imagine most (all?) of those cars are valuable enough to be repaired. I doubt a single car was actually "lost".

 

[Pupik]

Why couldn't it happen at the Dodge Neon Museum instead?

...and the gloves come off. Besides, there's no head gaskets left to support the museum.

This sucks. Looks like the Blue Devil will be okay.

 

[Robin]

The ones which can be seen in the hole look reasonably repairable but they ones under the rubble below that might be toast

It's a real shame but I cannot believe how poor the foundations are under that building, did they literally lay the floor on dirt! Why isnt there a thick concrete floor slab? Even the red roof beam seems to have very shallow underpinnings.

 

[Pupik]

To be fair, very few structures can survive a sinkhole.

 

[Dagger311]

Not the vettes!

 

[ND4SPD]

This makes me a sad panda.....

 

[CodeRedR51]